SOUTH AFRICAN president Jacob Zuma was labelled a dictator yesterday by controversial politician Julius Malema during a media briefing in which he also accused police of threatening to kill him.
The former African Congress Youth League leader told reporters that when he arrived at Marikana’s Wonderkop Stadium in the North West province on Monday to address thousands of striking miners the authorities barred his entry and forced him to leave.
The striking miners had gathered to be briefed on developments about their wage demands and Mr Malema maintained they asked him to attend.
However, after a lengthy discussion with senior officers at the stadium the 32-year-old drove off, escorted by about 10 police vans and a helicopter.
“Police threatened to isolate us and kill us,” Mr Malema said in Johannesburg. “They pushed us out against our will . . . even though we were invited there to speak.”
The firebrand politician, who was expelled from the ANC earlier this year for sowing divisions in the organisation, has emerged as a central figure and totem for many of the striking miners since 34 of their colleagues were shot dead by police on August 16th last near Lonmin’s Marikana mine.
He has called on workers across the mining sector to make it ungovernable until employers give into their wage demands, and for Mr Zuma to leave office for failing to lead the country during the crisis.
The striking miners agreed to go back to work yesterday after accepting a 22 per cent pay rise.
The ANC believes Mr Malema’s motives for siding with the miners are self-serving. The party claims he is using the tragedy to resurrect his political career and undermine Mr Zuma’s bid for a second term as party president.
Continuing with the anti-Zuma rhetoric he has been espousing of late, Mr Malema said yesterday South Africa’s current president was “a liability to South Africa and the ANC” who would plunge the country into a “deeper crisis” if re-elected as party president in December.
“Like all dictators, he only concentrates on his village, Nkandla,” Mr Malema said in reference to the multimillion euro town the government plans to build in the rural area where Mr Zuma comes from.
But Mr Malema’s efforts to nurture a groundswell of opposition against his nemesis’s political ambitions has prompted government to accuse him of inciting violence in the mining sector.
Wildcat strikes, intimidation and illegal protests have been widespread since last month.
