Pretoria - EFF leader Julius Malema has said last week’s deaths of two people during protests in Hammanskraal showed that the ANC did not know what it was doing.
“What happened in Hammanskraal is a clear sign of a party that does not know what it is doing. There are lots of farms in Hammanskraal. Why can’t we expropriate some land and give it to the people so they can bury their loved ones?” Malema asked.
It was unfortunate that when the fatal protests took place EFF leaders were away and couldn’t go, he said, but he promised he would pay them a visit. Malema also took aim at the City of Tshwane saying it had incorporated Motsweding into the municipality instead of improving it as a separate municipality, in order to get votes.
“They will do anything to win no matter how unprincipled it is.”
Malema was confident that his party would win all the municipalities in the local government elections. “We are contesting all of the wards in the country and we are going to win all of them,” he said.
He was speaking during a press briefing in Midrand where the party was finalising its candidate list for the elections. Malema would not be drawn on which municipalities the EFF was targeting, but admitted some places were getting more attention than others.
Malema, flanked by Dali Mpofu and Floyd Shivambu, explained that the ward candidates were chosen by the wards and that they could not tamper with the list of names unless the candidate did not have the proper qualifications for the job.
The candidates came from the branches, he said. The regions then had the opportunity to peruse the list to pick the preferred candidates. They spent the whole day yesterday going through the candidate lists one by one to choose those who would represent the party in the elections.
“We are contesting all the wards in the country. We have launched almost 3 900 branches. Where we don’t have branches we call the EFF members in the area in good standing and they will choose among themselves who their leader will be,” Malema said.
Since the EFF launched its manifesto in Soweto, members had gone on door-to-door campaigns ahead of the elections in August. In some places they were met with animosity.
“In Mpumalanga, we experienced violence, and one of our members was shot and injured. In KwaZulu-Natal we faced some opposition. They were drunk and unruly. We suspect that the ANC bought them alcohol and told them to disrupt our campaigning,” Malema said.
He said he was shocked at the ANC’s conduct during the run-up to the elections as they only disrupted EFF events; not that of the DA. This gave the DA more space to campaign.
“If they lose to the EFF they will lose to a black party but they don’t care. This confirms that the movement of over 100 years is shaking.”
Malema lambasted the media, saying it unfairly portrayed the EFF as a violent party and made the ANC look like victims. “The EFF is unfairly projected as a violent party when we have not disrupted any party’s campaigning… the ANC throws stones, we don’t throw stones,” Malema said.