EFF – praag.org

EFF, DA fuming at PE’s new Coloured mayor

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is helping the DA by calling on the newly-appointed Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Danny Jordaan to resign from his SA Football Association presidency.

The opposition party says serving both as mayor under the ruling ANC as well as the football association’s president will affect Jordaan’s “impartiality”.

The EFF logic is not clear as Jordaan has always been openly ANC.

”Jordaan must resign from the association since he has chosen active politics and life as an ANC politician. At the helm of SAFA there must be a person that all the supporters of Bafana Bafana, Banyana Banyana, and the rest of national soccer teams can associate with regardless of which political parties they belong to,” said spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi in a statement on Monday.

The ANC announced on Monday that Jordaan would replace 83-year-old former MP Benson Fihla in the troubled Nelson Mandela Bay.

Opposition parties such as the EFF and the Democratic Alliance (DA) have made inroads into Port Elizabeth as the 2016 local government elections draws nearer. DA Eastern Cape leader Athol Trollip has been confirmed as the opposition’s mayoral candidate for the metro.

In the national elections in 2014, the ANC received 48.8 percent of the votes with the DA closing in on it with 40.8 percent.

The DA is furious that Jordaan, a Coloured, will take away the ethnic Coloured vote that they counted on to win the metro.

Malema threatens white land owners

South Africa’s white farmers should stop being sensitive and participate in critical debates on the transformation of the agricultural landscape and other emotive issues, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema told a forum of agricultural roleplayers in the Western Cape on Wednesday night.

Speaking at a dinner hosted by the forum – which calls itself “Gesprek” – Malema moved to allay white fears on “expropriation without compensation”.

“As long as it’s a productive farm, we don’t have to interfere with the production on that piece of land,” Malema said.

“When there is part of a land which is not used for agriculture purposes, we would be having a problem. All we are saying is the land must be used. It must not lie idle.”

But, he wasted little time before warning farmers that they needed to play their part in empowering black people.

“You owe it to the people who have been oppressed… to mentor them,” Malema said.

“If you love this country, you must love its people. Say to them ‘I’m volunteering my services. I’m going to make sure the land is used productively and used to feed the children of this community’.”

Those who did not want to contribute to transforming the sector were free to pack up and leave.

“There is no white man… no white woman who is going to be driven into the sea,” he assured the farmers.

“Feel free to leave, but you would miss out. You will miss us. We won’t miss you.”

Source: IOL

Malema pleads for black unity

Julius Malema pleaded with Alexandra residents on Monday to embrace black Africans in a bid to save black racial unity.

The EFF leader reminded his racial equals of the critical role that African countries had played to overthrow white rule.

He told residents to stop competing with black foreigners or to blame black foreigners for their suffering and to blame the government instead.

Shots were fired at a group of EFF members as residents waited at the corner of Fourth Avenue for Malema to appear.

Shots, it seemed, were fired from the Madala hostel where Zulu residents were holed up fearing some attack from the EFF Pedi’s. One EFF member was shot in the leg and rushed to hospital.

Malema’s visit to the area followed the xenophobic attack of Mozambican Emmanuel Sithole in Alexandra on Saturday.

Police have arrested all four men in connection with the murder.

EFF stages landgrab in Ballito

A group of EFF members staged a land grab on prime real estate in Ballito on Sunday.

The seaside town, north of Durban, is home to some of the most opulent developments in KwaZulu-Natal.

A well-placed police source with knowledge of the incident, who could not be named as he is not authorised to speak to the press, confirmed that two groups of EFF members had attempted to stake their claim on a tract of farm land on the outskirts of the town.

“This morning we had an incident with two groups of EFF members who tried to occupy a piece of the land which flanks the N2 near the entrance to Ballito. Police officers were called to the scene,” he said.

“They were intent on claiming the piece of land which belongs to a local farmer who eventually came to the hilltop where they all were,” the source said.

“The owner of the land spoke to them and everyone agreed to convene a meeting in two weeks. There is a process that needs to be followed with these land claims, you cannot just show up and expect to start building,” he said.

Louis Kotze, of security firm Ballito Hawks, confirmed that the attempted land grab was ongoing.

Source: News24

DA, EFF start up the black election bandwagon

A mock leadership battle has begun in the DA following Zille’s announcement that she will not be available for re-election at the party’s elective congress on May 9.

The official opposition will elect a new leadership in Port Elizabeth next month.

DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane has emerged as the most likely successor to Zille, but Maimane has said he will “consult with structures before making himself available”.

It is common knowledge though that Zille prefers Maimane and that her voice carries the most weight despite “democratic voting” within the party. Zille was instrumental in appointing previous parliamentary leader and political train wreck, Lindiwe Mazibuko, despite a lack of votes.

Zille said she would remain Western Cape premier for another four years and would work to grow the DA’s support base in next year’s local government elections.

Meanwhile the party has extended the deadline for nominations in a bid to look “fair”.

Maimane’s possible election and the retention of his current position as parliamentary leader would mean that once again the two roles which Zille had split, would be combined.

The turning point came when the DA attacked president Zuma together with the EFF in Parliament on Nkandla funding earlier this year, with both parties staging a notorious walk-out which led to chaos.

Before the walk-out, the DA was viewed as a white political party by the black electorate. Thus having the first black party leader articulating party policy with the help of the EFF will be important to garner more black votes in 2016.

Political analyst Daniel Silke told the Businessday that the end of Ms Zille’s reign offered just such an opportunity to the party. It provides the platform for the party to elect its first black leader and potentially expand its electoral base into new markets that until now might have been blocked, he said.

The risk, Silke added, was whether a black leader would resonate with the rank-and-file supporters on the coloured Cape Flats, a key constituency for the DA.

“Mr Maimane is the clear frontrunner and given his leadership of the parliamentary caucus, presents a much-needed and long-overdue opportunity to unify the position of national leader and caucus leader.”

High tea leads to mayhem in parliament

The MSM had been buzzing about their latest pompous American acronym, SONA, for weeks, but it seems that parliamentarians under the influence of High Tea, celebrated a rather classless opening of the once august institution.

Proceedings got off to a rocky start with MPs demanding to know why the cellphone signals were jammed in the National Assembly.

Last night eventually saw one parliamentarian with nearly all his clothes removed by a bouncer. A female EFF MP Reneilwe Mashabela’s jaw was broken in the fracas to impress democratic voters and she had to be admitted to a (private) hospital.

The Economic Freedom Fighters had warned that they would disrupt the proceedings with interjections about security upgrades to Zuma’s Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal, and they did not disappoint. The president hadn’t been on the podium for long when an EFF MP Godrich Gardee interrupted and chaos ensued.

Big Business had aquiesced to president Zuma’s request earlier to cut power usage to keep televisions on in every home, enabling all to stay abreast of the current political entertainment from Cape Town, home of parliament and drug capital of South Africa.

“The events that unfolded before our eyes were aimed at bringing our democracy into serious disrepute,” Minister in the ANC Presidency Jeff Radebe admitted to reporters.

Neither the Speaker Baleka Mbete nor ignominious pig farmer Thandi Modise would allow any questions. A group of armed police and private security guards were called in to spoil for a fight.

In a show of solidarity with the EFF, DA MPs, all clad in black, then resorted to more melodrama and left the chamber too. They theatrically claimed to be too hurt to listen to the state of the nation following the forceful removal of EFF MPs by either armed security personnel or police.

The EFF promised that they would bring weapons to parliament next time, timeslive reported. “We were obviously pushed around. Next time we will be armed,” EFF-deputy Floyd Shivambu said.

During his speech, Zuma announced that the government would train “fifteen thousand plumbers to fix leaking taps in townships” but nary a peep about illegal electricity connections, causing billions to leak from the state budget.

It seems that Shell’s shale gas project in the Karoo will go ahead, despite fierce opposition from almost everyone not on their kickback list.

FW de Klerk, who together with Nelson Mandela, made this all possible by handing over power to the ANC, also attended the special session, and to everyone’s great surprise, remarked: “South Africa is heading for constitutional crisis mode. I have never seen such a thing.”

Most adherents of political parties that had warned De Klerk of the impending doom, still languish in prison today as forgotten political prisoners, having never received amnesty from the equally farcical Thruth and Reconciliation Commission.

EFF targets mining magnates

Closing the EFF’s national people’s assembly in Bloemfontein yesterday, party president Julius Malema called on members to “block mines” in which magnate Patrice Motsepe (African Rainbow Minerals), Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa ( Lonmin) and National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete (Gold Fields) had interests.

Malema described the proposed mass action as a protest against the way in which black economic empowerment benefited only a few wealthy, politically connected individuals instead of communities.

“We target these companies not because of the perceived ANC sympathies of the beneficiaries but because the money should be put to use to empower communities, and these people are the faces of the few who have become rich rather than creating community trusts,” he said.

Malema said yesterday the EFF intended always to act “within the law and the constitution. We are a disciplined organisation.”

He said land grabs were necessary to prevent the “land issue from leading to the civil strife it has caused in the rest of Africa”.

Police recently removed land invaders organised by the EFF from an area near Nelmapius in Pretoria. The squatters christened the area Malemaville.

But political analyst Ralph Mathekga said the EFF was being “disingenuous”.

“The biggest contradiction with the EFF is that you have a party that agrees to be in parliament and therefore agrees to be bound by the [legal] processes of that institution but chooses to use extra-legal means to achieve its objectives. It is disingenuous,” he said.

“[Malema’s] words would carry weight, perhaps, if they had refused to take part in elections and chosen to go outside the parliamentary process, but they have chosen not to do so. I think they are concerned about being seen to be swallowed up by parliamentary processes. No one is stopping them abdicating their positions in parliament.”

With only 25 seats in parliament, the EFF has so far failed to influence policy positions. It has instead resorted to showmanship, best characterised by the August 21 “pay back the money” chanting.

Political analyst JP Landman said the EFF’s utterances were good for democracy.

“What it has done is force people to take a stand. Since the EFF has come to parliament, the ANC has come out saying it is committed to land reform.”

The ANC, Landman said, was committed to land reform within the context of Section 25 of the constitution, which stipulated that property may be expropriated only by law, with payment of compensation.

Source: timeslive

EFF attack with brics, machetes, pangas

Chaos erupted on Sunday afternoon during the Economic Freedom Fighters’ Northern Cape conference, as members armed with bricks, machetes and pangas tore into each other, trashing the venue and leaving a trail of blood.

The conference, which saw EFF members from across the province gather at the Savoy Hotel in Kimberley to elect the provincial leadership, spiralled out of control after an apparent jostling for the leadership position between the party’s incumbent provincial leader, Aubrey Baartman, and a delegate at the conference, Ronald Februarie.

On Saturday a charge of assault was laid with the police following an apparent incident between Baartman and Februarie. On Sunday the police confirmed that a case had been opened and they were investigating it, but referred all queries to the party itself.

Chaos, however, erupted at around 3pm on Sunday afternoon as a group of around 50 people stormed the Savoy Hotel in the CBD. Other EFF members fled the hotel, running into the Old De Beers Road.

One person, wearing a camouflage uniform and armed with a stun gun, was trying to “shoot” as many people as possible as they fled in all directions.

The fleeing members then armed themselves with machetes, pangas, bricks and even beer bottles and returned to the hotel premises.

The front doors of the hotel were forced open and bricks flew between the two EFF factions, with members running backwards and forwards, trying to hide behind vehicles parked in the road.

The front windscreen of a bus, which was used to ferry members to the conference, was also smashed.

At one stage, Februarie himself came running out of the building with blood pouring from his mouth and down his arm. He too ducked for cover behind cars in the road.

Inside the venue there was even more chaos, with delegates running up and down the stairs and through the passages.

Tables and chairs were smashed, as well as interior doors. Blood was smeared on the carpets and on the tiles in the passages. Both doors to the conference centre were broken and the one entrance was barricaded closed with around 10 to 15 chairs which had been stacked on top of each other.

EFF members hurled insults, slating delegates as traitors and accused each other of supporting fraudulent members.

Around 10 minutes after the chaos erupted, several police vehicles as well as security guards arrived and managed to restore order.

A journalist was forced to take cover and call to the police for assistance after delegates attempted to forcefully take his camera to prevent him from taking photographs inside the venue. The police eventually took his camera to diffuse the situation.

Baartman told journalists after the incident that the instigators behind the violence that erupted needed to be disciplined and warned that they would face disciplinary action.

“One of the heads of security was injured after a brick was thrown at him and he might even lose his eyesight,” said Baartman.

He accused a faction of hiring gangsters from Galeshewe to disrupt the proceedings.

“The entire disruption was orchestrated as all delegates were searched,” Baartman said. “There was strict security and no weapons were allowed inside the premises.”

He added that he only learnt during the course of the conference that Februarie had his sights set on the leadership position.

“Ronald comes from Gauteng and doesn’t know the people here in the province. I will not be held hostage and will continue to defend the organisation. This group are agents working for the ANC,” said Baartman.

He said the fighting broke out when a faction of members realised that they did not have enough support to oust him as provincial leader and replace him with Februarie.

Meanwhile, EFF co-ordinator, Mabatho Mokause, who herself was hit on the head with a chair, accused Baartman of being corrupt and bribing delegates with R10 000 to vote for him.

“Security guards were sent from the national office for the conference. They were supposed to have searched all the delegates but they only searched the supporters of Februarie, forcing them to strip all the way down to their underwear,” said Mokause.

She called for Baartman to be removed as the provincial leader. “The national leadership must intervene now. This conference cannot go on – none of the votes cast here are valid.”

Mokause also accused Baartman of having several cases against him.

“We cannot have a leader who has so many cases against him. We are trying to teach our youngsters about politics. We cannot have a leadership that is corrupt. Baartman must go!”

Source: Diamond Fields Advertiser

EFF land grab kicks off in Pretoria

The Economic Freedom Fighters’ land-grab policy kicked off in Pretoria yesterday when local party leaders led an invasion of council-owned land earmarked for low-cost housing.

The executive committee of the party’s Nellmapius ward 86 delivered local people to “Malemaville” but the exercise ended in blood and broken bones when Tshwane metro police fired rubber bullets.

About 3000 people had queued in the rain to get their names on the EFF’s list of people to be given land along the N4 highway.

More than 100 portions were allocated on Sunday and about 1200 people were on the list by yesterday afternoon.

According to timeslive Willy Kubayi, 31, who queued for a piece of land, “paid a heavy price when his upper lip was torn after he was shot in the face at close range by the police as he ran for cover”.

The stampeding crowd trampled a woman in her forties and she broke a leg.

After the shooting people blockaded the road with tyres and rocks.

Tshwane metro police’s Isaac Mahamba could not confirm the number of people injured.

“We cannot allow people to occupy land illegally. We are monitoring the situation to make sure no land invasion occurs,” he said.

EFF branch chairman Vusi Msiza planned the takeover and named the land after party leader Julius Malema.

“People have nowhere to stay but there is plenty of empty land. We are implementing the EFF policy of expropriation of land and we will fight to stay on that land,” he said.

Msiza said he had told the party’s Tshwane regional chairman and Gauteng legislature chief whip Benjamin Disolwana about his branch’s “programme of action”.

An ANC member who travelled from Kwaggafontein, in Mpumalanga, to claim land, said she supported EFF policies.

“EFF policies are best for the poor and I like that they are not cowards – they stand up for what they believe in,” she said, asking not to be named.

Next year, says the local EFF branch, it will implement the party policy of free education – pupils will not pay school fees.

Steve Msiza said local EFF supporters wanted their branch of the party to be the first to implement the party’s policies and other branches should follow suit.

He said the EFF would use force if necessary to collect report cards from schools at the end of this year if they are being withheld for non-payment of school fees.

“We are the first to implement the expropriation of land without compensation, and free education; other branches will follow. These are the policies of the party. We do not need the national leadership to tell us to start implementing,” he said.

EFF land and education policies call for the transfer of land ownership to the state and free education up to undergraduate level.

Neither Malema nor EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi could be reached for comment.

Tshwane University of Technology political analyst Levy Ndou said yesterday that a party could implement policies only if it were in power and had consulted the citizenry.

“What they are doing is illegal and politically wrong. Only a party in government can implement policies. We need to educate our people that they can participate in policy making but cannot implement it,” he said.

Local ANC councillor Precious Marole said the EFF was taking people for “a ride”, creating drama to attract attention.

“The EFF is misbehaving. They will never occupy that land.

“They made people queue in the rain for nothing. I am going to call a community meeting to make that clear,” Marole said.

He said the land was sold to the council by a farmer and that about 60 families already lived there.

They had worked for the farmer and stayed on the land when he left.

Malema mulling an armed struggle

The Economic Freedom Fighters may take up arms if their “peaceful revolution” is met with violence from the state, party leader Julius Malema said on Thursday.

“We can’t rule out the possibility of an armed struggle if the state is going to meet peaceful protest with violence,” he said in a pre-recorded interview aired on SAfm radio.

“We would not do anything which seeks to compromise the 1994 breakthrough and it all depends on how the state responds to the radical demands of our people.”

He hoped the ruling party would not be tempted to adopt “apartheid tactics” when faced with serious pressure.

Malema told the radio station there was no need for a “military response” from the state, when clearly he is mulling taking up arms.

“In the Parliament, the freedom of speech and expression is unlimited. It is absolute and you need to live with that.

“All of you must begin to accept that we are exercising our rights to the limit and therefore we are not going to conduct ourselves in a manner defined by the middle class which has always hated us. It will never vote for us.”

The EFF is hoping that incitement against the “middle class”, a euphemism for whites, will lead to anarchy and revolution that would bring “hope to the working class and eliminate poverty”.

Meanwhile the EFF Commmander in Chief this week indulged in a twitter war after he was spotted wearing a black Louis Vuitton belt.

This is not the first time he’s tweaked the workers’ overall he wears to parliament with exorbitantly expensive clothing and accessories, while demanding “social justice” and “economic freedom”.

The pauper also wears a Breitling watch valued at R250 000.

Malema promises to shut down Joburg businesses

Julius Malema, EFF leader is planning a mass action that will shut down businesses in Johannesburg when his supporters return to protest against the ban on overalls in the Gauteng legislature.

According to the Sunday Times, Malema’s planned protest will make Tuesday’s chaotic rally look like a picnic in the park.

In an interview with the newspaper, Malema said: “We will shut down business in this Johannesburg. Once business in Johannesburg is shut down, it means business in the whole of Africa has stopped.”

Malema told thousands of supporters on Saturday at Thokoza Park in Soweto that celebrated the party’s one year anniversary, of the ANC shortcomings.

“Even if they die, there is nothing you will remember about them except that they were making babies,” said Malema.

He said the formation of the EFF had shaken the political landscape in the country and the ANC was feeling the pressure being exerted by the organisation.

“… Now you can’t listen to the media without the mention of the EFF. That is because EFF is a giant,” Malema said.

“We don’t care what people wear. We care about their will to resolve issues of people on the ground. We want people who think and not ‘domkops’ (idiots) from the ANC,” said Malema.

Source: News24

PRAAG supports EFF call to scrap Die Stem

PRAAG, the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group, has come out in favour of the EFF plan to scrap the bits of Die Stem still sung as part of the South African national anthem.

“Although, like all Afrikaners, we love Die Stem,” said Dan Roodt, leader of PRAAG, “we have to face the fact that it represents a kind of patriotism and national identity that do not fit in with South Africa’s open-border, internationalist, pan-African policies.”

According to PRAAG, there is vast popular and institutional support for doing away with Die Stem, which is being astutely exploited by the Economic Freedom Fighters. “Just like the Business Day, the country’s main business newspaper, supports the confiscation of Afrikaner-owned farms, the English universities, media, and even religious bodies like the South African Council of Churches or the Jewish Board of Deputies would also support doing away with any Afrikaans or Afrikaner snippets still included in the national anthem. There is a rising tide of Boerehaat in South Africa, which it would be unwise to further exacerbate by insisting on any retention of Afrikaner elements within South Africa’s post-1994 British and pan-African identity.”

At the same time PRAAG supports the singing of Die Stem at Afrikaans art festivals, such as Innibos in Nelspruit where singer Steve Hofmeyr recently got 45 000 people to sing the 1928 anthem written by poet CJ Langenhoven, as well as other Afrikaner patriotic songs. “Steve did the right thing,” said Roodt. “We have to face the fact that mainstream South Africa has rejected our language, culture, literature and traditions and as a non-colonial people we would never force it upon others, unlike the British, French and other colonial powers. Let us sing Die Stem henceforth among ourselves, as a souvenir of our lost sovereignty and a song of hope for the future when sometime we will again be free of cultural, linguistic, political and military domination.”

Roodt also rejected neo-marxist criticism of Hofmeyr’s act in Nelspruit, with left-wing radicals characterising it as “fascist” and “authoritarian”. “These days in our country, everything is ‘fascist’,” Roodt said. “The family, heterosexuality, spelling correctly, giving marks for a maths test, rugby, aesthetic standards, stopping immigrants at the border, are all derided as manifestations of right-wing extremism. The EFF does not wear red overalls for nothing. In fact, Julius Malema is the spiritual and intellectual leader of the South African revolution and we predict that the universities will soon fall over themselves to award him honorary doctorates in political science, economics and philosophy.”

“Let us not stand in the way of transformation and revolution,” Roodt concluded. “But at the same time, let us uphold our quaint habits, such as good Afrikaans spelling, giving marks for maths tests in our schools and singing Die Stem.”

EFF starts own trade union

Barely eight months after it was formed, the EFF will start their own union – the National Trade Union Congress.

The Economic Freedom Fighters said the Labour Department has officially given them the go-ahead.

The EFF union plans to target marginalised workers such as petrol attendants, domestic workers, farmworkers, security guards and workers in the retail sector.

An EFF spokesman said yesterday party members could not belong to Cosatu-affiliated unions.

According to an EFF insider, the party submitted registration forms to the Labour Department on May 27 and received its registration number yesterday.

The inside source said the EFF would travel to all nine provinces to recruit people into their union.

“We already have a huge number of registered members but we could not approach employers for recognition without registration,” he said.

The union could prove stiff competition to Cosatu, which is battling internal divisions. The biggest split has been with The National Union of Metalworkers of SA, which has just called for a strike.

The EFF won 6.35% of the votes in the national elections in May.

Eddie Mathiba, the union’s interim general secretary, said “the economic emancipation of the proletariat” has arrived.

“Gone are the days of capitalist vehicles driven by employers and Cosatu affiliates,” he said.

Source: TimesLive

EFF leader kicked out for calling whites ‘AmaBhulu’

The Sowetan reported that Bisho legislature speaker Noxolo Kiviet kicked EFF-leader Themba Wele out of the House on Tuesday for referring to white people in his speech as “AmaBhulu” (boers).

Wele was making his party’s presentation during the debate on premier Phumulo Masualle’s state-of-the-province address in the Bhisho legislature.

“You have not mentioned plans to expropriate land for agricultural projects because niyawoyika amabhulu okany nilala nawo ngengubo enye (you are scared of boers or maybe you share the same blanket with them),” Wele reportedly said.

ANC MPL Mxolisi Dimaza raised a point of order, saying the use of the word boer was unparliamentary and that Wele should retract the statement.

Wele refused and was asked to leave the house.

This was the second time in less than a week that he had been thrown out of the legislature, according to the report.

On Friday, Wele and his EFF counterpart Siyabulela Peter were kicked out for wearing red overalls and hard hats.