Johannesburg - ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte has likened EFF leader Julius Malema to Adolf Hitler and his party to Nazi Germany.
Duarte was speaking while campaigning in Rustenburg in the North West, where she took the fight to the EFF by claiming they were using the Marikana massacre in 2012 to curry favour.
This is not the first time the ANC has made the claim, which has over the years been scoffed at by the EFF which says South Africans have had enough of the ruling party’s empty service delivery problems.
The EFF is tipped to erode the ANC’s support in Rustenburg, a prized municipality in the North West which falls in the county’s platinum belt. This erosion is expected to be mostly felt in Marikana, which the EFF has claimed to be a stronghold.
But other factors like the emergence of independent candidates may help the EFF by forming coalitions with the party after next month’s elections if no single party wins an outright majority.
Duarte was speaking while conducting walkabouts in Tlhabane and its surrounding informal settlement of Yizo-Yizo where community members aired frustrations about the mayor and their local municipality’s tardy service delivery.
She took aim at the EFF which has repeatedly said the ANC government killed workers in Marikana in 2012 where 46 people died during a prolonged strike at Lonmin mine.
Duarte said Marikana was the biggest tragedy experienced post 1994 in the country, but that people should never forget the origins of it from a labour dispute into something “unacceptable”.
She said the tragedy was caused by the police reaction to people who were armed on a mine where evidence showed a witchdoctor prescribed a particular course of action for the day.
“But we are not judging people of Marikana, we are saying our president instituted a commission of inquiry to wipe away all the legend lies that were being told,” she said.
“At the end of the day that remains is a labour dispute gone wrong and unfortunately what we need to learn is how to deal with labour disputes in a different manner.”
Duarte then took aim at Malema and the EFF saying their presence in the area soon after the killings on August 12 led to many conclusions.
But she said she did not want to cast blame or doubt on the Farlman Commission of Inquiry which was tasked with investigating the source of the massacre and hold those responsible to account.
The commission has been accused by the EFF of being a “whitewash” after it absolved all political leaders including Deputy President Cyril Ramphosa of any responsibility in the killings.
Duarte said Marikana was the only story the EFF had to tell.
“It’s a sad thing to use people who died on both sides, workers and police officers. It’s really a tragedy when people use tragic death as means for popularity, which is the worst form of populism,” she said.
“In fact Hitler was very good at that and to us it sounds very much like the people who use that story have a Hitler mentality.”