PHUTI MOSOMANE
THE national shutdown organized by the EFF on Monday was unsuccessful and ‘a big flop’, according to ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula.
Had it been successful, it may have resulted in widespread chaos throughout South Africa, akin to last year’s political chaos in Sri Lanka which saw President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s residences occupied by protesters angered by the country’s economic collapse.
According to Mbalula, the government has effectively thwarted attempts to undermine the democratic state and incite chaos.
“We made it impossible for anarchy to prevail. Do not say violence didn’t happen. In Braamfontein, students took to the streets on Sunday midnight and started doing things. It was only in the morning that the EFF started speaking about peaceful protest,” said Mbalula.
“When a registered political party attacks the basis of our democracy, you are saying we must not respond? If the country went in flames two days ago, now you will be saying Ramaphosa must go because he is irresponsible and sleeping on the job. Everything happened in the context of the rule of law.”
When asked about the heavy deployment of the army, Mbalula defended the action and stated that it was a justifiable measure.
“When Alexandra came to a standstill in July 2021, there was an outcry about the capacity of the State. How can the State fold its arm when somebody has announced that nothing should move on March 20th? A responsible state got to do something about it. There were inflammatory talks,” he said.
Mbalula said the EFF threatened a Sri-Lanka-style “revolution” in order to cause chaos and remove a sitting President through undemocratic means.
“It’s not about personality cult. If you say you are on the side of the poor; do you know what it means for a taxi not to move for the whole day? A breadwinner is affected, the hawker on the streets would not risk being on the street under the environment and would go to bed without food in an ailing economy,” said Mbalula.
He stated that when the rule of law is endangered, it is the responsibility of the army and police to step in. He also refuted accusations that the back-and-forth exchange he had with EFF leader Julius Malema on Twitter was in violation of ANC policy and motivated by personal differences.
“We simply engage and differ. There is no war between Malema and myself; he is the leader of the EFF; I am the secretary general of the ANC. Yes, I played a part in his political development- I did defend him when he was expelled. in the ANC until he formed his political party, but there is no tit for tat,” he said, adding that “any attempt at displaying demagoguery or hijacking hard-won democratic victories will be condemned unapologetically,” said Mbalula.
“I didn’t demean the ANC [in my Twitter posts]; I simply told the story the way it is. The EFF, including Dr. Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, and others differed with me. I characterized the [national] shutdown as the biggest flop because they envisioned that people are going to go to the street, copying what is happening in Sri Lanka; they imagined themselves in Ramaphosa’s bedroom at Mahlaba Ndlovu shutting down the country. That would have been the biggest victory for them; they would be calling it a revolution. But people did not turn up because they did not subscribe to anarchy.”
Organisers of the national shutdown called Monday’s protest a success.
INSIDE POLITICS
