Zanu PF accuses Malema of ‘using Mugabe’s funeral for political mileage’

By Staff Reporter

Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu PF party has accused South Africa’s opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party leader Julius Malema of being a hypocrite and seeking to use former President Robert Mugabe’s funeral for political mileage.

Malema on Monday visited the Blue Roof, the place where the Mugabe family resides in Harare to pay his last respects and offer condolences to the former First Lady Grace Mugabe. 

Addressing journalists at the house, Malema urged government to protect the legacy of Mugabe as well as consider the wishes of his family first.

“Part of protecting his legacy first and foremost is to respect the wishes of his family. It is absolute nonsense that you think declaring a person a national hero takes away the right of the family over the deceased,” he said.

“Every little detail of what we want to have around a dead body should be consulted with the family. There is a very strong surviving spouse here, which is not easily broken by arrivalist, so they ought to respect the wishes of this woman,” Malema added.

Zanu-PF national spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo however claimed Malema’s desperation had pushed him to use Mugabe’s death for political relevance.

“While the late Cde RG Mugabe has always been the national, regional and continental and globally esteemed revolution icon, who relentlessly fought the machinations of the oppressor, it is sad to have a puppet of the same colonisers Cde RG Mugabe fought, in the form of Malema demeaning all that he solidly stood for. It would be interesting to all and sundry if they would replay Malema’s past where he vilified the same late Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe he now wants to befriend in death,” said Khaya Moyo.

“In our African culture it is taboo for anyone despite their station in life to use the occasion of a funeral to demean fellow African brothers and sisters. In that regard, the party finds it reprehensible for Julius Malema to use such a solemn, sombre occasion to spew political propaganda and to score cheap political mileage,” said Khaya Moyo.

“Malema needs to be reminded that his illusion to equate youthful exuberance and verbosity for wisdom and grounded intellectuality exposes him for the political novice which he is.

“That Malema is now a decorated stooge at the mercy of our yesteryear colonisers is now a public secret as exhibited by his constant verbiage against African leaders and their respective countries.

“It is sad that he used Zimbabwean soil, the bastion of revolutionary mantra and the fortress of black conscientiousness to lampoon the regional body, Sadc leadership and its ethos.”