Johannesburg - EFF leader Julius Malema has promised a peaceful question-and-answer session in the National Assembly on Wednesday, but under the condition that President Jacob Zuma deal with his previous unanswered questions.
Malema said the party would “insist” that Zuma answer outstanding questions from last year’s disrupted session, adding that the party’s 25 MPs would rather be “beaten and assaulted” than let the matter go.
“Let them do it (call the police) again; we don’t care about those things. I mean, we are not going to live under fear here that we are going to be brutalised by the police. Let them do what they want to do.
“All we are asking is for us to stick to the rules. And they will want to project the EFF as being unruly. This is an invitation to unnecessary conflict. Let the president start where it ended and it will be the most peaceful question-and-answer session. Let the president do the right thing,” he said.
He said his only worry was that the people who advise the president “keep on misleading him”.
He said the EFF was not about to reconsider its strategy or adopt a less disruptive approach when it comes to holding Zuma and the executive to account, signalling what could to be another chaotic sitting.
His comments also follow the National Assembly’s programme committee’s decision that oral questions to the president would not be extended to include the unanswered questions from the session held on August 21. Speaker Baleka Mbete chairs the committee.
“What does he lose if he starts where he ended? What does he lose really? We are not going to allow the president to undermine us. We are not going to allow the Speaker to undermine us. Anything that is within the rules, we would rather be beaten about it, it’s fine. Let us be beaten, killed, assaulted and harassed for rules. If you get beaten for being silly, you call yourself to order and say ‘let me leave this thing’, but we are right. South Africans can see that we are right,” Malema said.
If Zuma or Mbete don’t accede to the EFF’s demands?
“If he doesn’t, we are going to insist. We are not going to be shy and scared to do our work. It’s going to happen because that’s what the rules want. We don’t care what Baleka wants; that’s not Baleka’s House, that’s Parliament.
“The rules say that if the president gets interrupted during a question-and-answer session, when it reconvenes, the president will have to start where it ended,” Malema said.
His comments came on the day Parliament released the list of questions for Zuma, with the “pay back the money” matter not one of them.
Malema has two questions scheduled for the day, with the option of asking follow-up or supplementary questions.
MPs have submitted a total of six questions for Zuma, which are mostly around the country’s criminal justice system and government programmes.
Malema will not be the only opposition MP putting questions to Zuma, with the IFP’s Mkhuleko Hlengwa and leader of the opposition Mmusi Maimane also lined up to ask questions.
Political Bureau