Johannesburg - The EFF says Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Athol Trollip will be removed on April 6, and there is nothing the DA can do about the matter.
The red berets accused the DA of misrepresenting its leader Julius Malema’s comment as hate speech as a tactic to mislead the public.
“Because we have chosen to do this with Athol Trollip, the DA is escalating the fight so that all other mayors in Johannesburg and Tshwane can be removed. The point is, if they lose Trollip, they should also lose others, because other mayors are not white,” said the EFF.
The DA said it would report Malema to the Equality Court for hate speech following his comments that “we are going for your white man in PE. We are going to cut the throat”. The reference was describing the removal of Trollip as mayor.
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The public spat between the EFF and the DA began earlier this week when the EFF motion to expropriate land without compensation was debated in Parliament on Tuesday. The motion was supported by the ANC and smaller parties, but the DA debated strongly against the motion.
This angered the EFF, and the party said it would punish the DA for its refusal to support the motion and it would help remove Trollip as Mayor.
The EFF said it would not back down on its decision.
It said it was the DA’s lack of sympathy and disregard for crimes of colonial and apartheid land dispossession that has made the party remain resolute.
“Each time the land question comes up, they deliberately disregard the evident and indisputable history of dispossession. Their argument, in essence, is that government must pay white people for land that was taken through a systematic crime against humanity,” said the EFF.
“Therefore, we make no apology that we will go for Athol Trollip. We will remove him as a mayor to communicate, provoke and impress on all DA white members that sensitivity to land loss by black people is a fundamental requirement for leading anywhere in the country. Trollip is a national DA member who ought to know that there are implications to the conduct of the DA in parliament to political decisions anywhere.”