By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema says they have terminated coalition negotiations with the African National Congress (ANC).
Malema said the party’s war council had decided to terminate coalitions talks with the governing party after they were unable to give clear commitment on issues raised.
He made the remarks on Tuesday, at a media briefing on the outcomes of coalition talks following the recent local government elections.
Malema explained that the ANC had sought to rush into discussions over positions and power sharing, before discussing the principles and policies raised by the EFF.
“Based on this report, [the] war council resolved to stop coalition discussions and negotiations with the ANC because they are failing to provide clear commitments and timelines on the key issues raised as a basis for negotiations.”
The EFF leader also said his party was infuriated that the ANC sent junior party members to the negotiation table, while the red berets had selected a group of senior party leaders.
“After their juniors failed, then they sent in [ANC treasurer-general, Paul] Mashatile, a crook of note… we have long held the view that we will never talk to him and have made it clear that in any talks with the EFF, the ANC should never send him, but they did,” said Malema.
Malema said the EFF’s negotiation team met with various parties and many “smaller parties” – including ANC, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and ActionSA.
ActionSA rejected going into coalitions with the red berets when it discovered that the EFF wanted to work with the ANC in municipalities which the ruling party lost in the recent local government elections.
“The negotiations team held two official meetings with ActionSA. While there was a degree of mutual understanding and to some extent agreements with ActionSA on the approach to municipalities, which they represented in, we learned via media that ActionSA will not work with the EFF in the manner in which we had proposed.
“We respect ActionSA’s decision and hoped that their decision is autonomous from external influences,” he said.
Malema added that the party was ready to disrupt any state funeral granted to apartheid era president FW de Klerk.
“I’m happy that the De Klerk Foundation said that De Klerk is going to be cremated. It’s good, he deserves cremation. Let them bury him the way they want to bury him.
“It’s good that (President Cyril Ramaphosa) did not provide a state funeral. We were going to disrupt it proper. We were going to disrupt it, because a state funeral is not about the money but honour.
“It is the highest honour our country can bestow on someone and it wasn’t going to happen with De Klerk. No money of ours was going to be spent on De Klerk.”