MOLOKO MOLOTO
A XED ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has termed President Jacob Zuma an “embarrassment” who has to be removed as ANC leader.
Addressing a gathering in Polokwane, Limpopo, last night organised by a lobby group that calls itself Friends of the Youth League, Malema flayed Zuma, among other things, over his sexual indiscretions, his polygamy, for being devoid of ideas and an African agenda, and for “rejecting” and not “correcting his children (ANCYL members)”.
Nor did he spare the ANC hierarchy, saying that aside from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, they were all “cowards”. He also struggled to identify anyone of them who were a “revolutionary to the core”.
Malema said Zuma’s sexual indiscretions, including sleeping with an HIV-positive woman without a condom, had weakened the fight against HIV/Aids.
Malema said Zuma had gone against the wishes of his late fellow comrade, the father of the woman who accused him of rape, when he slept with her, as Zuma had been asked to take care of his family.
“President Zuma was the chairperson of a government Aids council which developed the strategy to fight HIV, yet he slept with her knowing that she was HIV-positive,” said Malema.
“Even after that, he comes to us and says we must condomise.”
Zuma was subsequently cleared of rape.
“Worse, he introduced a shower as a new method to fight HIV infection,” Malema said in reference to Zuma’s comments that he had taken a shower to minimise the chances of infection.
He also blasted Zuma for later impregnating Sonono Khoza, the daughter of his friend and soccer boss Irvin Khoza.
“After doing all these, he tests publicly and says ‘I am HIV-negative’. In other words, he says you can have sex without a condom and not get Aids,” said Malema.
Attacking ANC leaders, he said they had failed to defend expelled youth leaders, who he claimed had been booted out by Zuma.
“The ANC is in a crisis, the ANC is led by cowards. I am struggling to single out a person who is a revolutionary to the core. Except for Mama Winnie Mandela, the rest are cowards,” he said.
“Those that we have supported today are the ones that want to justify our expulsion.”
Commenting on Zuma’s alleged lack of vision, he said: “Zuma has no thinking capacity, he doesn’t have ideas. Anything he says, you must rest assured he heard somebody saying it and he believed it.
“If we were engaged in academic activity, Zuma would be accused of plagiarism because he doesn’t acknowledge the source.”
Insisting Zuma should be removed as ANC leader, Malema said: “We need a president who respects himself and the office he occupies.”
He went on to criticise Zuma’s polygamous marriages, saying: “We can’t allow a president who gets married every weekend, it can’t be.”
Malema said his views about Botswana and Zuma had not changed and he had no regrets for voicing them.
“Botswana remains a sellout. They are going to build a military base for imperialists, the African agenda has been compromised since President Zuma became president; we have seen the killing of (Muammar) Gaddafi,” he said.
He added that even though Zuma had actively campaigned for Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to chair the AU Commission, Zuma still lacked a clear direction about an African agenda.
“Theirs was just personal glory and victories,” he said.
He insisted that he had not wronged the ANC, as he had not been punished for rape.
He said that under Nelson Mandela, the ANC did not reject its children, but corrected them.
“Today, a faction is leading the ANC. A faction wants to come back in December, they are doing everything in their power to come back; and anything that threatens them, they remove it,” Malema stated.
He said he continued to influence the ANC from outside and urged his supporters to continue associating with him, “because they will not expel all of us, it is practically impossible”.
Last night’s meeting was also attended by ANC provincial executive committee members Clifford Motsepe and France Moswane.