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EFF leader Julius Malema has warned president Cyril Ramaphosa against abandoning ANC resolutions, saying that it will signal his own illegitimacy among those who did not support him.
Malema was addressing a joint sitting of Parliament which was convened to debate Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address.
“We have been convened here to debate what was meant to be the state of the nation address by the newly elected president. A man who held the ambition to be president for almost three decades. Indeed this is our duty, but in this case we really have no state of the nation to debate. What we have is a misguided, contradictory and proven-to-be futile ideas, mixed in a bag of fantasies,” Malema said.
“After your speech we now ask ourselves as to what did [former president Nelson Mandela] Madiba see in you which we can’t see. Your speech didn’t inspire confidence and hope among the poor, young and old people of South Africa.”
Giving Ramaphosa a lecture on his organisation, the former ANC Youth League president warned Ramaphosa that ANC conference resolutions were binding.
“As young youth league leaders we were taught by [former president] Kgalema Motlanthe to respect your own decisions or risk rendering the collective structure that took that decision irrelevant.
“You will therefore recall that because of this principle, although Chris Hani was very angry at the decision to suspend the arms struggle, once a decision was affirmed by a higher structure it was binding, he had to go around the country and explain it to others as if it was his own view.”
Malema was referring to the resolutions taken by the ANC conference which elected Ramaphosa as ANC president in 2017. The EFF leader quoted the resolutions which called on the ANC government to change the mandate of and nationalise the South African Reserve Bank, it also resolved to expropriate land without compensation. The two resolutions were championed by the faction opposing Ramaphosa.
During his state of the nation address last week, Ramaphosa appeared to re-affirm the current mandate of the Reserve Bank.
Malema said that the president had displayed “disrespect,” to the ANC’s resolutions, “simply because you personally do not agree with them.”
“Last week you retreated on expropriation of land without compensation and nationalisation of the Reserve Bank. But let us warn you, if you do not respect the resolution of your own conference, imagine what message you are sending to those who did not want you to be the president. You are saying to them that the decision of you being elected president is not binding since all other decisions taken in the same conference are not binding,” Malema said.
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