PHUTI MOSOMANE
THE EFF has given the Speaker of the National Assembly Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula at least 48 hours to apologise for kicking out its MPs from Parliament during the State of the Nation Address on Thursday night.
EFF MPs were removed from the joint sitting of Parliament by the Special Task Force members following the violent disruption of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech.
”If the Speaker fails to do so in 48 hours, we will approach the Constitutional Court because at the level where we are, we think that this matter deals directly with the Constitution and do not need other lower courts to deal with these matters,” said EFF leader Julius Malema.
The Speaker of Parliament, Malema told reporters, will get 48 hours upon receiving EFF’s letter to publicly withdraw and apologise.
”She should do so with the protection services, by distancing themselves from the act of the security services and they should do so in the form of a press conference.”
”Cyril Ramaphosa decided to retain the same Minister on the behest and for the benefit of the white capitalist establishment. The foolishly conceptualised Ministry of Electricity must be rejected with contempt because South Africa has always had a Ministry responsible for electricity, and despite several warnings about the incumbents,” the firebrand leader told reporters in Cape town on Friday.
He explained that Members of Parliament were permitted absolute freedom of speech, including to protest in Parliament in terms of Section 58 of the Constitution.
“In the process of unlawfully invading Parliament, the SAPS harassed members of the media through physical violence and intimidation,” he said.
Malema said after legal consultations, EFF decided to write to the Speaker of Parliament to apologize and withdraw for “allowing members of the SAPS to invade Parliament.”
He said the security protection services did as they wished, in a clear violation of the Parliamentary rules, without MPs being protected by the Speaker.
Said Malema: ”There is a video of a member of the EFF being removed from the sit and not on the stage. The rest of our members were removed from the house without even their names being called, without the speaker giving an instruction that those members must be removed.”
“We are getting removed from Parliament, I’m sitting there and I spoke, after speaking I sat down. My name gets read out with other colleagues names from there we are told to leave the house.”
He said the South African constitution encourages a peaceful protest, which he claimed is what EFF MPs did.
Malema insisted that the EFF posed no security threat to the President.
“This was peaceful, there was no singing, it was just going to be standing on the stage silently carrying placards,” said Malema.
“Everywhere else where you’re suspected to be a threat, you’re asked to raise your hands where they can see them. My hands were visible with a placard and if anything. this was less than payback the money. On the stage my hands were visible, holding a placard, since when is holding a placard in a peaceful manner constitutes a threat?”
INSIDE POLITICS
