EFF to insist Zuma answers, says Malema

EFF leader Julius Malema has promised a “peaceful” question-and-answer session in the National Assembly tomorrow, but on condition that President Jacob Zuma deals with his previous unanswered questions.

Malema said the party would “insist” that President Zuma answers outstanding questions from last year’s disrupted session, adding that the party’s 25 MPs would rather be “beaten and assaulted” than let the matter go.

“Let them do

it

(call police) again; we don’t care about those things. I mean, we are not going to live under fear here that we are going to be brutalised by police.

“And they will want to project the EFF as being unruly.

“This is an invitation to unnecessary conflict. Let the president start where it ended and it will be the most peaceful question-andanswer session. Let the president do the right thing.”

Malema said his only worry was that the people who advised the president would “keep on misleading him”.

The EFF was not about to reconsider its strategy or adopt a less disruptive approach when it came to holding President Zuma and the executive to account, he said, signalling what could be another chaotic sitting.

His comments follow the National Assembly’s programme committee’s decision that oral questions to the president would not be extended to include the unanswered questions from the session held on August 21. Speaker Baleka Mbete chairs the committee.

Should Zuma or Mbete not accede to their demands, Malema said: “If he doesn’t, we are going to insist. We are not going to be shy and scared to do our work. It’s going to happen because that’s what the rules want. The rules say if the president gets interrupted during a question-and-answer session, when it reconvenes the president will have to start where it ended.”

He will not be the only opposition MP putting questions to Zuma.

The IFP’s Mkhuleko Hlengwa and the leader of the opposition, Mmusi Maimane, are also lined up to ask questions.