ANC calls for EFF to be prosecuted
The ANC has called for the criminal prosecution of EFF MPs who damaged parliamentary property as they were being forcibly removed from the National assembly yesterday.
A glass entrance door to parliament was shattered, furniture damaged and clothes torn as the Economic Freedom Fighters MPs fought white shirted parliamentary bouncers who removed them violently from the National Assembly at the behest of National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete.
Parliament was locked down with no-one – public, media or MPs – allowed back into the main parliamentary buildings after the violent clashes.
After the violence, EFF leader Julius Malema promised that Zuma would not be allowed to speak his mind in parliament peacefully because the EFF believed he broke his presidential oath of office.
Speaking from outside the national assembly after his ejection, Malema said it was not business as usual and Zuma would never see “peace” during the remainder of his term.
“These bouncers must know that if they give violence, we will respond with violence.
“We’re not scared, we’re debating in parliament. Anyone who manhandles us must know we’ve got the same capacity. No one has monopoly on violence.
“This parliament will never be the same … Zuma is not our president. The day he breached the constitution that’s the day he kissed the office of president goodbye.
“The only thing that will bring peace here is when Zuma resigns as a sign of respect to the Constitutional Court and Constitution,” said Malema
The EFF caucus formed a laager and fought back hard inside the chamber and in the corridors inside the parliamentary building, singing the struggle song “Senzeni na?” (“What have we done?”)
In the chamber, MPs went into hand-to-hand combat with the bouncers and threw both water bottles and water into the faces of the bouncers.
At least one bouncer had his shirt torn by an EFF MP.
At one point, a fire extinguisher was emptied on the bouncers inside the main parliamentary building, at the site of the door which was later shattered.
ANC MPs cheered and DA MPs looked on aghast as the bouncers removed the whole EFF caucus from the chamber, with especially loud cheers going up from ANC women MPs when the bouncers hit elderly women MPs of the EFF.
The problems started when EFF deputy chief whip Hlengiwe Hlophe raised a point of order that Zuma not be allowed to speak in the chamber because the Constitutional Court had in effect found that he had broken his presidential oath to defend and uphold the Constitution by not implementing Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's remedial steps against him regarding paying back the money spent on upgrades to his private residence at Nkandla.
Mbete pointed out that the EFF had taken the matter to the Cape High Court and had lost.
ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu said all parties had agreed that Zuma was to address the National Assembly. This was denied by the EFF.