EFF disrupted Ramaphosa and Zille’s plan to give hung metros to ANC, says Malema

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema claims his party disrupted a plan hatched by President Cyril Ramaphosa and the DA’s federal council chairperson, Helen Zille, to hand over the country’s hung metros to the ANC.

Malema, speaking on Thursday at a media briefing in Johannesburg, alleged that the DA had abandoned the plan by opposition parties to vote for the DA’s Randall Williams as Tshwane mayor and ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba as Johannesburg mayor, because they wanted to “upset the opposition” and hand over the metros to the ANC.

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He said the plan was meant to make Ramaphosa appear as the ANC’s messiah and saviour.

“We knew of the plan that Cyril’s ANC, helped by Helen Zille, must get more metros than what [former president Jacob] Zuma got [in 2016]. Then Cyril must come out as the saviour of the ANC [and] as a smart negotiator. We disrupted that plan.

“Helen was not contesting metros, she’s shocked herself [the DA won]. She was pretending to be contesting metros because she has a deal with Ramaphosa to upset the opposition,” Malema said.

The EFF leader said the manoeuvres by his party and ActionSA to vote for the DA’s mayoral candidates in Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni torpedoed the ANC-DA plan.

“They [the DA] were not contesting the ANC government, they were not. No way! They were going to be pretending [to be fielding candidates], that’s why they came out the way they did,” he said.

‘Ramaphosa did not save ANC’

With the ANC failing to obtain a majority to govern in hung metros, Malema claimed Ramaphosa did nothing to save the governing party from public embarrassment.

“Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of the ANC, never bothered to talk to anyone because he thought he’s got this thing sealed. He was not worried about anything.”

Malema said Ramaphosa was not a skilled negotiator as others have described him. He said it was former president Jacob Zuma and suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule who had ensured that the ANC retained control of eThekwini metro.

He claimed Deputy President David Mabuza even tried to negotiate with the EFF on coalitions, but the party snubbed him because he apparently has no power.

“[The ANC’s] radical economic transformation forces are the ones who won eThekwini. They were fighting there. Where was CR17 [Ramaphosa’s campaign to become ANC president in 2017]? Where was the president of the ANC when all of this was happening?”

No EFF-DA coalition

While the EFF voted with ActionSA to install DA mayors in hung municipalities, Malema stressed that there was no coalition arrangement in place between the Red Berets and the DA.

“The DA has got no coalition with the EFF and the EFF has got no coalition with the DA… The DA won municipalities without any coalition deal [and] it ends there,” he said.

When a white man says don’t vote for me, we vote for him by force. There’s nothing he can do.

Julius Malema

He said he agreed with DA leader John Steenhuisen that the EFF’s votes for their mayors came with no strings attached.

“We agree with him wholeheartedly. The DA owes EFF nothing [and] we don’t owe the DA anything. We are not going to have a meeting with the DA in the next five years talking about municipalities and how to manage them,” Malema said.

Malema said his party’s councillors had voted to remove the ANC from power, not in favour of the DA and its mayoral candidates.

He added that the EFF’s biggest task was to completely obliterate the ANC from power in all spheres of government.

“And we are succeeding in that mission. That mission will never stop in eThekwini, we’re going to continue to make sure that that winner of RET forces is removed in less than a year,” he warned.

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