Julius Malema heads off to Zimbabwe

By Staff Reporter

Expelled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema will visit Zimbabwe on Friday, the Economic Freedom Fighters said.

Malema would meet “progressive forces in Zimbabwe” to discuss economic freedom, Floyd Shivambu said in a statement on Thursday.

“During the visit, [Malema] will also attend the wedding of the deputy secretary general of the Pan African Youth Union and member of Zanu-PF Youth, Comrade Tendai Wenyika.” Malema would be accompanied by Shivambu and suspended ANCYL secretary general Sindiso Magaqa.

“Economic Freedom Fighters will forever associate with and interact with progressive forces across the country, the African continent and whole world and will never be ashamed,” Shivambu said.

The visit comes amid strong suspicions that Zanu PF is funding the activities of Malema to sow seeds of discontent among South Africa’s poor — in a bid to derail Zuma’s re-election and his mediation efforts to the Zimbabwean crisis.

Only last year the ANC accused Zanu PF of influencing and feeding Malema’s radical programme.

ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe claimed in a meeting with Zanu PF Secretary for Administration Didymus Mutasa that Zanu PF youths had massed outside the South African embassy in Harare to demonstrate against the ANC’s decision to charge Malema.

Speaking to the Zanu PF controlled Herald newspaper Mutasa at the time said:

“We talked about the youths. They blamed us saying ‘Malema speaks like you and thinks like you’. We told them that we are not influencing him. If he speaks like Zanu PF, that is the way he likes to speak, we cannot change him. If he thinks like us, that is up to him.”

Mantashe told reporters that the ANC was yet to take a firm decision on nationalisation after sending teams to several countries in which the state has a massive stake in mining operations.

“We want to look at what is best for South Africans and when people advocate for a policy, we want a policy that does not hurt the economy. Nationalisation is a nice policy to talk about, but we don’t want that which scares away investors,” Mantashe said last year. Additional reporting by SAPA