ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has likened opposition leader Helen Zille to a monkey, reports said on Monday.
Without naming her directly, Malema said in Polokwane at the weekend: “Have you ever seen an ugly woman in a blue dress dancing like a monkey because she is looking for votes?”, reported the Sowetan and the Star newspapers.
In the same breath, he criticised the Democratic Alliance’s governance of the Western Cape.
“Who built open toilets for coloured people in the Western Cape? It was not the ANC [African National Congress] but the DA,” said Malema.
DA youth leader Mbali Ntuli described the comments as “disgusting”.
“We are not going to take what he said seriously. He is merely involved in racial politics and we won’t be part of that.”
Zille and Malema had been at each other’s throats several times in the past.
He has called her ugly, a racist, colonialist and imperialist, while she has called him an inkwenkwe, which means an uncircumcised boy.
In 2009, he also criticised her dancing.
Zille had recently launched her party’s election manifesto in Kliptown, Soweto ahead of local government elections next month.
The Sowetan published a picture of her on Monday wearing a blue DA T-shirt and blue skirt, dancing at an event in Port Elizabeth at the weekend. — Sapa