Pravin and EFF trade legal blows

After Gordhan lays charges against Julius Malema, the EFF leader responds in kind.

The war between the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the ANC escalated again yesterday, with Julius Malema stating he would be charging Pravin Gordhan for various crimes, including money laundering and contravening the Intelligence Act.

Malema’s tit-for-tat accusations came after Gordhan laid charges against Malema and Floyd Shivambu at the Brooklyn police station in Pretoria.

“We cannot any longer allow the corruption that is going on at all levels in this country to be masked by racism, by personal attacks, by family attacks and, of course, by political attacks as well,” Gordhan said.

“So, we have decided that enough is enough. If you want to argue with us politically, that is fine, but once you lie and you attack families, and you propagate these lies widely enough you start dividing South African society, it becomes totally unacceptable,” Gordhan said.

Malema said yesterday on Twitter his charges against Gordhan would be money laundering, corruption, racketeering, fraud, contravention of the Intelligence Act and Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, and perjury.

The two politicians charging each other was unusual in South Africa and political analyst Daniel Silke said the ANC/EFF battle was playing out through the two offices.

“We’re seeing electioneering taking place via a proxy war between these two,” said Silke.

“Clearly, the more noise Malema makes and the more coverage he gets, the more the distraction from his own problems with VBS.”

For Gordhan, it was a personal matter in that he wanted to clear his name but, said Silke, the ANC increasingly wanted to put some “clear blue water” between it and the EFF.

Gordhan has charged Malema and Shivambu at the Equality Court with “contraventions of Section 10 of the Equality Act in that these were clearly intended to be hurtful, incite harm and promote hatred and thus constitute hate speech, as contemplated by the Act”.

He also laid a charge of crimen injuria against Malema and Shivambu and asked the police to consider if Malema’s statement on November 20 that “… there will be causalities. There can even be a loss of life. If you’re not ready for that, stand aside”, was an incitement to violence.

We’re seeing electioneering taking place via a proxy war between these two.

Daniel Silke Political analyst