Malema: ‘Let’s say Winnie was sleeping with young kids…’

An SABC video clip of EFF leader Julius Malema discussing the late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s alleged affairs on Friday in George has been widely shared on Twitter since he gave the address, which he used to pan her critics.

He particularly lashed out at those who have accused her of having affairs with younger men, one of whom, Advocate Dali Mpofu, is today the EFF’s national chairperson. Mpofu has consistently denied the allegation.

Malema says in the clip: “They say Winnie Mandela was sleeping with young kids when Mandela was in prison – something she has not done.

“But let’s say she has done it … she slept with young kids when Mandela was in prison and all of that. Who has not done that? Because all of these male leaders … they slept with women of their fellow comrades. They slept with the children of their fellow comrades. They raped their own children. Yet they got elected into the highest offices,” he said to rising applause in an obvious reference to former president Jacob Zuma who was accused of raping the late HIV-positive Fezekile Kuzwayo. He also fathered a child with his friend Irvin Khoza’s daughter.

“When it’s a man sleeping around [then] ‘no, it’s understandable’, he’s an ndota (big man). But when it’s a woman: ‘Hey, she is useless, she can’t be a leader; hey, she has hurt Mandela’.”

He then asked what Jacob Zuma’s first wife, Gertrude Khumalo, must have been feeling all these years. “What about MaKhumalo: How many times was she hurt?

“Yet the hurter of MaKhumalo was promoted into presidency. A woman can’t do this, a woman can’t do that.”

Watch the video:

& there I thought Ive heard it all …@Julius_S_Malema pic.twitter.com/vfN0iI6jrM

— Dumisani Hlophe (@KunjaloD) April 8, 2018

Earlier he had also posed the hypothetical that even if Madikizela-Mandela had killed Stompie Seipei, it should not be a big deal since criticism of her has primarily been due to patriarchal hypocrisy – the men of the ANC had done far worse in exile without any consequences.

“They hated her because they hate African women,” he said in George. He, however, denied that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Stompie in 1989, and police had found no evidence against her in the case of the 14-year-old boy who was murdered in 1989.