EFF ‘a fascist militia’- FW de Klerk Foundation

The FW de Klerk Foundation has compared the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to a fascist militia, following their disruption of the State of the Nation address (Sona) on Thursday.

Foundation chair Dave Steward was commenting on the EFF’s demands for the former president, an invited guest at the event, to leave the venue, apparently in protest over the statesman’s comments in a recent interview where he inferred that apartheid could not be considered a crime against humanity.

The EFF added this to their list of demands during their staged protest in parliament on Thursday. They were primarily calling for President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan. The commotion which ensued led to Sona being delayed by an hour.

“We thought it was a shocking display of thuggery by the EFF and we really want to know where they are coming from,” said Steward. “If you are wearing colour-coded uniforms, verbalise on the basis of race, break up meetings with bullying tactics and you call your leader things like commander-in-chief it’s really the same creed.”

EFF spokesperson Danisile Ngwenya told Touch HD the party was not apologetic about their behaviour – but opposition parties are calling for the party’s MPs to face disciplinary action.

“They are well within their rights to voice their disgruntlement and to propose whatever they want to propose. We are also members of parliament, we have rights as well to raise everything that we want to raise…protected by the constitution and Acts in the parliament.”

Steward called Malema’s utterances against De Klerk hypocritical and bashed the party for pandering to populism for media attention.

“And it’s all a bit ironic because Malema himself in 2016 threatened what really would have been a genocide, calling for the slaughtering of white people… I think everything they do is for the media and to get as much publicity as possible. I think most people were quite shocked by their behavior, while some might say they like that kind of extremism and populism.”

Steward said the foundation did not think the EFF’s sentiments were shared by the majority of South Africans.

The organisation was pursuing a judicial review of the decision made by the South African Human Rights Commission last year declaring that Malema’s utterances regarding the “slaughtering of white people” was not hate speech.

– simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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