Malema thanks Ramaphosa’s campaign for preventing a Dlamini-Zuma presidency

EFF leader Julius Malema started his response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s second state of the nation (Sona) address at a debate in parliament on Tuesday afternoon with a not-so-subtle dig at Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Dlamini-Zuma was Ramaphosa’s rival in a very close race to become president of the ANC, and in turn president of the country, which played out at the party’s elective conference in Nasrec in late 2017 and saw Ramaphosa emerge victorious.

Malema thanked Ramaphosa’s campaign, the CR17 campaign, for having won, as he said it would have been a “nightmare” if Dlamini-Zuma were elected, adding that this year’s Sona would have been the “most boring”, a reference to the public speaking style of the politician, who currently serves as minister of planning, monitoring and evaluation.

While the EFF leader began his part of the Sona debate by joking about Ramaphosa’s political rival within the ANC, his magnanimity towards the president ended there.

READ MORE: Unions are ‘holding Eskom – and SA – to ransom’

He said that Ramaphosa’s speech made “dangerous proposals” that would make him an “enemy of the people and workers”.

Malema was referring mainly to Ramaphosa’s announcement that Eskom would be split into three, a move that unions have sworn to fight because in their eyes it would pave the way towards “privatisation”.

Unions and the EFF are in agreement regarding contracts that have seen the struggling energy utility enlist the services of independent power producers (IPPs). They said the contracts had been adopted at exorbitant prices and added they could lead to job losses at Eskom.

The counter-argument is that Eskom is hugely overstaffed and cannot be saved without some job losses, as an owner of an independent power producer told The Citizen today.

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