South Africans woke up on Thursday morning gearing up for this year’s State of the Nation address, following an eventful week for the country’s political parties.
Scores of police from as far afield as Pretoria have been deployed at every possible vantage point around Parliament.
Streets and pavements have been cordoned off and a large police presence is visible in the Company Gardens adjoining Parliament.
Businesses in the city centre are closing early in anticipation of possible trouble from one of the several official and unofficial marches of unhappy South Africans.
While inside Parliament looks like a police state.
EFF party leader, Julius Malema has made it clear that EFF will not stay quiet during President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address.
“Instead of just leaving him alone, we are going to share that time with him. It will be he and the EFF giving the State of the Nation Address that day,” Malema told reporters in Benoni at the EFF’s annual plenum.
Julius Malema says he will show his disrespect for President Jacob Zuma during next week’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) and that he is not afraid to be forcibly removed from Parliament’s chambers again.
“He is not worth being given the respect that must be given to a sitting president. When we declare a war, we fight it to the bitter end. This is not the end and Zuma must go down.”
Malema says the party will be marching to the Constitutional Court on Tuesday to demand Zuma step down.
Malema has rejected the president’s offer to repay portions of the money spent on his Nkandla home.
He says the EFF will continue with legal action against Zuma to hold him to account and has given the president two months to make the payment.
The EFF leader says Zuma is only trying to delay paying back the money spent on Nkandla.
Both the Democratic Alliance and Malema have rejected the president’s settlement offer announced this week and instead are pushing ahead with their legal battle against him in the Constitutional Court.
Malema says the president needs to come clean.
“He must agree that he was in breach of oath of office because in everything else that he did he didn’t protect the public purse, that is expected of a sitting president.”