Lekota teams up with Steve Hofmeyr in laying charges against Mngxitama

Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota has teamed up with Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr, accompanying him to the Brooklyn police station in Pretoria, where he laid charges against Black First Land First leader Andile Mngxitama.

This is the second time this week Cope has been involved in the taking of legal action against the BLF leader. The party did so in their own capacity at the Kimberley police station on Tuesday.

This followed Mngxitama’s utterances over the weekend in which the BLF leader threatened that he and his followers would kill white people and their pets, though he claimed he had meant it in self-defence.

Cope’s laying of charges seemingly isn’t enough for Lekota, who decided to go with Hofmeyr, who laid his own criminal charges against Mgxitama on behalf of his organisation, ToekomsVonk, demanding the BLF leader be locked up within a week.

If the police failed to do so, the body said would regard that as an endorsement of the “BLF’s threats of murder and genocide against the white minority”.

READ MORE: Why Cope is hoping for ‘the white vote’

The decision of Lekota to back Hofmeyr appears to be the latest in a series of overtures he and his party have made to white South Africans who oppose expropriation without compensation.

The Citizen reported earlier in December that Cope was likely hoping for an electoral comeback by moving to the right of the Democratic Alliance (DA) to woo white voters who are worried about the land situation and who don’t feel represented by the DA.

Cope joined hands with minority lobby group AfriForum in November, with Lekota and the organisation’s CEO Kallie Kriel issuing a joint statement announcing a campaign to lobby foreign embassies to stop the ANC from amending section 25 of the constitution.

They have now gone a step further by joining hands with Hofmeyr, who sees himself as an activist for Afrikaner rights. His organisation, ToekomsVonk, stands to the right of AfriForum on the political spectrum. While often called right wing, AfriForum rejects the tag, saying they are a mainstream civil rights organisation.

This may not be the first time Lekota and Hofmeyr have partnered, with a YouTube video circulating claiming the two called for Donald Trump to intervene to stop land expropriation from going ahead.

READ MORE: BLF claims it’s too broke to defend itself in court

The Afrikaans singer has been accused of racism several times.

Incidences, mainly on social media, have included him tweeting that “black people were the architects of apartheid”, another tweet which was widely interpreted as him saying black people are more prone to rape than white people, his expressions of regret for voting “yes” in the referendum that led to a democratic South Africa, and his assertion that the Sharpeville massacre was not a human rights transgression.

He has also written a song dedicated to the late far-right AWB leader Eugene Terrblanche, once threatening to sing a version of the lyrics with the k-word in them as retribution for Julius Malema’s singing of Dubul’iBhunu (Shoot the Boer). He has found further controversy by repeatedly singing Die Stem both locally and internationally.

Mngixtama and his party, meanwhile, are drowning in legal woes, with the DA joining Cope and ToekomsVonk in laying charges against him as well as both AfriForum and the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), on behalf of an individual, taking him to the Equality Court.

The deputy leader of the BLF, Zanele Lwana, was quoted as saying that the group cannot afford to pay legal fees.

(Additional reporting by Eric Naki)

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.