IFP not interested in Malema’s call for them to follow Buthelezi into retirement

The Inkatha Freedom Party said they would not entertain EFF leader Julius Malema’s comment suggesting the IFP should follow in Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s footsteps when he retires.

Malema, addressing crowds of EFF supporters outside the Newcastle Magistrate’s Court on Monday where he briefly appeared on charges of contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act, told supporters that the IFP leader was going into retirement and suggested the party should follow him into non-existence.

IFP spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa said during a media briefing that the party would not take Malema seriously as he was once prepared to kill or even die for former president Jacob Zuma.

Hlengwa told the media that Malema had a questionable personality and was now “playing the man and not the ball” with his comments directed at the IFP leader.

Malema should refrain from commenting on issues of the party as he had never been a member of the party, Hlengwa said, according to IOL. Speaking in defence of Buthelezi, he said the prince had successfully groomed leaders in the party to ensure a smooth transition in the interests of the IFP and he denied claims that the party would die post-Buthelezi’s leadership.

Malema appeared in court for utterances made in 2016 in Newcastle where hehad  called supporters to identify land and seize it. His case was postponed to July 8 as Malema’s legal team challenged the constitutionality of the Act in the High Court in Pretoria, where a ruling is still pending. That case was heard in December and its outcome will affect the Newcastle charges.

Outside the court, Malema not only targetted Buthelezi in his comments but said he opposed black people working for white people.

“[We] want you to work for yourselves; white people will work for you. That will be true freedom. You must teach them how to carry babies on their back. They must feel what our parents have been feeling.”

He told supporters that he longed for the day when white South Africans served black citizens.

“We are not calling for white people to be killed, but for white people to be our domestic workers. But whites [can] only work for blacks when the country’s land [is] returned to the majority,” he said.

He defended his utterances by saying he wasn’t calling for whites to leave the country but that “white citizens who [want] to leave the country because they [are threatened] by black ownership, should just leave”.

(Compiled by Gopolang Chawane)

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