The Government has reminded, in the strongest terms, embattled South African opposition politician Mr Julius Malema to mind the business of his waning political career and stop meddling in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs.
In a statement yesterday, Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Dr Chris Mushohwe said Mr Malema, who leads the Economic Freedom Fighters party, was a charlatan who by any stretch of imagination does not deserve to comment on President Mugabe.
Addressing journalists in South Africa on Monday, Mr Malema claimed that President Mugabe’s continued stay in power was not good for Zimbabwe, Sadc and what he called the African revolutionary project.
He further insulted Zanu-PF members, labelling them cowards for endorsing President Mugabe as the party’s presidential candidate for next year’s harmonised elections.
The Government did not take lightly Mr Malema’s strident attacks on the person of President Mugabe and his unbridled and insatiable thirst for relevance in regional and continental politics.
Mr Malema, who was booted out of the revolutionary ANC, has since thrown his lot with the reactionary Democratic Alliance, in a bid to depose the ANC.
Dr Mushohwe told Mr Malema that his remarks were irritating and uncalled for, describing him as an ignorant youth and a talkative joker.
“The Government of Zimbabwe finds quite irritating and uncalled for insulting statements by the so-called Economic Freedom Fighters leader, Julius Malema, directed at Zimbabwe, and at the person of President Mugabe,” said Dr Mushohwe.
“What made Malema’s statements irritatingly despicable was an informing presumption that in spite of his threadbare, prodigal political career, he visualised himself as important enough to comment and pass judgment on the leadership credentials and political career of so iconic a figure as President Robert Gabriel Mugabe.”His preposterous claim that his treacherous, pro-white, neo-colonial politics find inspiration in the figure and politics of President Mugabe is a hard-to-suffer insult. There is just no meeting point between the two politics, let alone between this puny, struggling person and President Mugabe.”
Dr Mushohwe continued: “This side of the Limpopo, Julius Malema shines as a loud-mouthed “Gucci” revolutionary who acquired the infamy of deserting and betraying politics of liberation as espoused by the ANC. Clearly his inspiration lies elsewhere, and no amount of taping from the proud record of Zanu-PF and Zimbabweans, or of invoking the name of our leader and President, will grant him even a patina of respectability, whether at home, on the continent or abroad.
“Simply, he is nothing more than a shrunken, talkative joke. And in typical fashion of political charlatans, he seeks to make up for his inner political deficiencies by projecting himself as a trans-border, continental politician who fancies himself big and cute enough to pass comment and judgment on developments elsewhere on the continent.
“What an embarrassment, what miserly little grasp of continental politics he exhibits in the process! We pity and dismiss him as an ignorant youth, ‘rema’ in Shona, one abortively trying to punch above his life-long weight.”
Dr Mushohwe said it was important for Mr Malema to be reminded that President Mugabe enjoyed immeasurable support among Zimbabweans of all age groups.
He said this was evidenced by the colossal victory registered by Zanu-PF in the recent Bikita West by-election.
“We doubt whether he is even aware that his unsolicited comments on Zanu-PF and President Mugabe came barely 24 hours after a landslide by-election victory by the ruling Zanu-PF, the same revolutionary Party which President Mugabe leads,” Dr Mushohwe said.
“What a far-cry from his EFF thing which only survives through political patchwork with disguised, resurgent apartheid political formations, and of course through childish histrionics in Parliament. Hardly the stuff that makes bona fide revolutionaries, or delivers land to the landless black South Africans!
Rather than worry about a delivering President Mugabe whose place in African history is assured, we counsel the pitiable Malema to concern himself with a deep introspection of where his politics of hobnobbing with vested white interests at home and abroad, leave him when the chapter on the African Revolution is finally written.
“For far worse than calendar age is the bane of political ageing afflicting so tender a political life and career! At such a rate, African history is sure to dismiss him.”