President Cyril Ramaphosa and his political rival EFF leader Julius Malema.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has reprimanded EFF leader Julius Malema following his conduct of getting personal, disrespecting others and playing the man not the ball when engaging in debates in the National Assembly.
Ramaphosa in his response to the Opening of Parliament Address debate on Monday urged Malema to read more books to avoid embarrassing himself and offered to school him about apartheid era politics because he is a political juvenile chihuahua who barks without content accelerating propaganda false rumours.
“It’s important, Honourable Malema, that as we debate, we should play the ball, not the man. You spend a considerable amount of time playing me, the man…You and I need to sit down and talk about politics, especially about apartheid-era politics, which I think confuses you. You seem to be in the dark. I will be doing this so that whenever you stand up and address us, it will be about something that will give us a direction.
“You stood here some two years ago and insulted my father and I, saying he was a police officer. Yes, I am proud to be the son of a policeman, a very good policeman. I spoke to your grandmother and I’d never stand here and insult your grandmother like that because I respected her like I do to you,” Ramaphosa said.
He also asked Malema to engage Gwede Mantashe, Mondli Gungubele, and many others to shed some light on his part in NUM formation.
“Waar was jy [where were you]?”Ramaphosa uttered to Malema.
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni also took a swipe at Malema over his VBS bank scandal involvement. This follows an affidavit by former VBS Mutual Bank chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi which Malema and EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu in the saga.
“The women, the elderly and the poorest of the poor who were members of stokvels [and] burial societies were saying to me, ‘who has a right to question the character of the president’… if anyone else but not honourable Julius Malema because it is not even [about] the money they lost, it’s the impact. They were not able to bury their dead with dignity.They are now suffering a generation of lost opportunities, why? Because honourable Malema and the EFF got money from VBS. Their party is actually registered by the proceeds of VBS.”
This happens barley a week after Energy and Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa lambasted Malema and labelled him an oxymoron following his political demagoguery chameleon tendencies of saying that the ANC is a sellout by forming the 7th administration Government of National Unity (GNU) with the DA and other parties while subjecting himself to amnesia that the EFF previously entered into an arrangement with the DA and other parties to displace the ANC in Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg.
When taking a jab at BOSA leader Mmusi Maimane and Malema, the intellectually pregnant Dr Ramokgopa said the ANC will never change its character of emancipating people from all forms of depression despite being part of GNU.
“The ANC entered into this arrangement, and it has not lost its character. We always have the following view. In our characterisation of South African conflict, which is underpinned by three interrelated and antagonistic contradictions of race, class and gender…I want to say to honourable Maimane, we are not all over the place. We simply identify the three priorities’…I’ll unpack those. As I confront what I refer to as the Malema oxymoron…what do I mean when I say the Malema oxymoron,” Dr Ramokgopa said.
“So, it is acceptable for the EFF to enter into an arrangement with the DA and other parties to displace the ANC in Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg but when we do that we get to be labelled. The oxymoron (referring to Malema) goes further, he makes the following point, he says that this is a sellout arrangement and essentially what President Matamela Ramaphosa delivered yesterday was authored by the Oppenheimers. And in the same argument he says, but this is the repeat of what President Matamela has been saying all along, so this articulation really belongs to us, it is the originality, so that is the oxymoron I’m referring to.”
He also told EEF deputy president Shivambu to refrain from speaking in tongues, politicking without facts but be prepared to learn before making hogwash statements.
Dr Ramokgopa also intellectually processed Dr John Hlophe, Chief Whip of former President Jacob Zuma’s new political toy MK Party.
Ramokgopa said it will be disingenuous for Dr Hlophe to make a point that the scholars of political science suggest that GNU are constructed only to respond to emergencies or a crisis. “I want to suggest to you that there are contemporaneous studies that suggest that GNU are not only formed because of crisis or emergency but the possibility of collectively pursuing an opportunity that presents itself in the context of a geopolitical crisis. I am making this point because as the good doctor will know, we have both an intellectual and academic responsibility to surface alternatives or counterviews when we proceed an argument. In fact, what you have done amounts to an intellectually and academically incompetent argument. I’m saying this with the greatest of respect and it is important that we are able to pull this together,” Dr Ramokgopa reprimanded Dr Hlophe.
In responding to Ramaphosa on Tuesday, Malema said: “You said I spoke about your father in order for you to drag my grandmother, unfairly so, because my grandmother has got nothing to do with what I am doing here. So, I want to state it very clearly that we respect each other and will continue to engage each other robustly.”
He also said: “Parliament and political work in general is not for soft-skinned people who will use all languages to complain whenever we give fair, but robust and direct characterisation of their political conduct. Here, we speak the truth and nothing else but the truth.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa unhappy with EFF leader Julius Malema's conduct.
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