Constitutional law expert Professor Pierre de Vos took to Twitter to remind us that last year Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema had admitted the party made a “terrible mistake” by voting for Busisiwe Mkhwebane as public protector.
The professor shared an article from The Citizen in which Malema apologised for his party’s backing of Mkhwebane and helping vote her into office in a bid to highlight what he saw as hypocrisy from the party since they recently submitted a complaint to the public protector asking her to investigate Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan over his “Gupta links”.
The party claimed Gordhan deliberately withheld information from the public, namely that he attended a meeting with Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani regarding him potentially acquiring a stake in cellular giant MTN. Ajay Gupta was also believed to be at the meeting.
READ MORE: Pravin kept ignoring me – Mkhwebane
While the public protector is currently investigating Gordhan, it has nothing to do with state capture or the Guptas and rather relates to the minister’s approval of former South African Revenue Service (Sars) deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay’s early retirement.
The EFF commander-in-chief personally responded to De Vos’ tweet by saying: “So what?”
Then, in a second tweet, Malema accused the professor of being “busy with a party of black people”, alleging that he was only highlighting the party’s supposed hypocrisy because they represented black interests.
READ MORE: Malema: We made a ‘terrible mistake’ by voting for Mkhwebane
The leader of the red berets brought up the fact that the Democratic Alliance (DA) recently called on the public protector to investigate the mayors involved in the VBS Bank scandal.
The DA has accused Mkhwebane of being unfit for her position due to corruption and incompetence and tried, alongside other opposition parties, to remove her through parliament.
Malema argues that just because a political party has voiced criticism or tried to remove Mkhwebane doesn’t mean the party can’t or won’t submit a complaint to her office.
The EFF leader also referred to the DA as “your DA”, alleging the professor was biased in favour of the party.
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