Mantashe says EFF using Nazi tactics

THE battle between the ANC and the EFF escalated yesterday, with the ruling party accusing the EFF of using the same “paramilitary” tactics as Adolf Hitler to mobilise support.

The ANC also accused the EFF of adopting the same positions as the DA to oppose any of its proposals as a way to weaken it.

“South Africa has also witnessed the entering of a fascist movement into our parliamentary politics. This movement uses uniforms to mobilise in the same way that Hitler used brown shirts in the 1930s,” ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said at a briefing in Johannesburg yesterday.

EFF members last week clashed with the police in the Gauteng provincial legislature when their protest march over the banning of their MPLs wearing red overalls with party insignia became violent

“The worrying factor in this regard is its (EFF) use of anarchy and destruction… this fits into the paramilitary content of their strategy, which shows early signs of a rebel movement designed and calculated to undermine democracy and state institutions,” Mantashe said.

EFF leader Julius Malema called Mantashe “a joke” for comparing the EFF to the Nazi Germany of Hitler.

“We won’t respond because there is no political base in what he thinks is political analysis. When people can’t fault you on issues, they engage in character assassination,” he said.

Mantashe had also suggested that the DA and the EFF were colludingto oppose the ANC without considering its proposals.

“Whether the proposal makes sense or not, both the DA and the EFF have taken a position of adamant and dog-

This movement uses uniforms to mobilise in the same way that Hitler used brown shirts in the 1930s

matic opposition… their interest is the same – that of delegitimising and weakening the ANC as a liberation movement with the intention to dislodge it.”

Malema denied his party agreed with the DA.

“It’s not true, that’s a lie. The DA agrees with them on the NDP (National Development Plan) and we disagree. There is no single thing that the EFF and the DA agrees on. It’s on the neo-liberal policies that the ANC and DA agree. If there are any parties that go to bed together, it’s the ANC and the DA.”

Mantashe said the official opposition was now “leading the anti-majoritarian liberal offensive” on the ANC as a liberation movement.

Part of the DA’s strategy, he added, included taking every ANC decision to litigation with the aim “to make it difficult for the legitimate government to govern”.

“We are a pragmatic opposition that opposes that which is not in the best interest of the society and celebrate that which is.

“We cannot sit back and clap if the government doesn’t do what promotes the values of the constitution,” DA national spokesman Marius Redelinghuys said.