Pretoria - EFF leader Julius Malema says party councillors who defy an instruction not to vote with the DA in the Tshwane Metro Council should quit, or risk being fired.
Malema issued the warning minutes after the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria dismissed his application to declare the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956 illegal. He also lost his application to set aside three criminal charges of inciting violence and trespassing against him.
After expressing his desire to challenge the High Court ruling in the Constitutional Court, Malema turned his attention on his party councillors and members who are apparently aggrieved by their national executive committee decision to terminate voting with the DA in Tshwane and the City of Joburg under Mayor Herman Mashaba.
“The central command team (CCT) - the national executive committee - took a decision on Monday to stop voting with the DA in Tshwane Metro. We wanted to be in control of Tshwane but the white people in the DA refused. Whites will always be whites. Tshwane (metro) is in the red. We wanted to revive the municipality. But the white people in the DA refused to share power with us,” Malema said.
Warning his councillors, he said: “Those EFF councillors who still want to vote with the DA - must join the DA. You must not vote for the DA through the EFF. If some of our supporters are also unhappy with our decision, they must go and join the DA,” Malema said.
He said his party was going to continue to work as an opposition party in the council chambers.
Malema urged his supporters to go out and explain the circumstances which led to their latest decision.
“We are faced with the 2021 municipal elections. The electorate will tell us that we voted with the DA in 2016 what did we do for them. You must tell them that the EFF wanted services to be provided to people living in Atteridgeville, Mamelodi and Garankuwa but the DA refused,” Malema said.
Politics Bureau