EFF statement on the Speaker's incitement of violence against EFF public representatives
15 February 2015
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has learned with shock, the utterances of the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, which incite violence against the EFF public representatives in all provincial legislatures and the National Assembly (see M&G online report).
The Speaker was addressing the ANC provincial conference in North West, where she was at pains to discredit and insult the parliamentarians of the economic emancipation movement. Baleka Mbete called the Commander-in-Chief, Son of the People, Julius Malema a "cockroaches". She went further to call EFF MPs "irritants" and "thugs".
She uses these labels to condemn the events that occurred during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) where she was presiding over the most brutal violence against EFF members of parliament, in particular women. Being a feminist herself, Baleka Mbete, has demonstrated the worst hypocrisy because she is often the number one voice when it comes to speaking about combating violence against women and healing society from its destructive cultures of masculinity.
Yet, during the State of the Nation Address, Baleka Mbete unleashed the worst form of destructive masculinity in the form of security forces to protect the most destructive hyper-musculine man, Jacob Zuma.
Baleka Mbete, drowning in the usual intellectual bankruptcy of the ANC, then accused the EFF of being used by western imperialist forces to undermine the ANC government; yet it is a well known fact that the ANC government has received financial support and otherwise from western imperialist forces.
Many of its elite cadres were educated in the universities of the west, with western money in particular. It is therefore the ANC that represents western imperialist forces in South Africa and the continent, as expressed by its neoliberal policies and programmes that are engineered to be benefit the same forces. It is the same ANC that went to Davos to beg these western imperialist forces to come to loot the South African economy and shift their profits to tax havens and subject our people to endless cycle of poverty.
She also accused the same western imperialist forces of not wanting Jacob Zuma to be President because he was ‘a rural man who sits with them on international structures', essentially implying that because he is rural, therefore, he is not smart.
No one can be blamed, neither the universities, the schools, the West, or even the ANC, for the intellectual incapacity of Jacob Zuma. No one except Zuma can be blamed for the intellectual incapacity, directionlessness, and his unending thirst to squander public resources.
The EFF is unapologetic about its legitimate demand for Jacob Zuma to answer the question about ‘when is he going to pay back the money' unduly spent at his compound in Nkandla. No amount of conspiracy theories, intimidation, usage of violence or threats of assassination will deter us from holding this corrupt ANC government accountable.
The EFF has long said that the Baleka Mbete did not "lose it" for a moment on the 21 August 2014 but that she has permanently "lost it" and must therefore do the honourable thing and resign as the Speaker of the National Assembly. The country cannot afford to have the Speaker of the National Assembly who incites violence against members of parliament, both inside and outside parliament.
She has violated the Rules of Parliament she is responsible for enforcing as well as the Constitution of South Africa (section 58) by ordering armed security forces to assault and forcefully remove members of parliament for what they said inside the Chamber. Parliament will only be safe when Baleka Mbete resigns, for she is biased and will do everything, including promoting hooliganism, to protect the cabinet and Jacob Zuma. No retreat!
Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, February 15 2015
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