Julius Malema took to the podium to deliver his maiden parliamentary speech during the State of the Nation debate. No holds barred, the Economic Freedom Fighters’ leader fired from the hip. Entertaining and controversial as always, it didn’t take long for Juju’s now legendary one-liners to become some of the most quoted lines from the debate on Twitter.
As expected though, Juju’s verbal machine-gun antics did land him in trouble with the House speaker, who called him to order a few times, before helaunching into an altercation with her. In spite of that, he shared a few enlightening words of wisdom.
Let’s take a look at the seven times Malema’s Maiden Monologue had viewers hooked and brought the House down.
1. When the House speaker told him to chill, he simply answered:
“No Honourable chair, I will not be told what to say and how to debate.”
And finished it off with a side-eye and a smile. Obviously.
The way I’m watching the #SONADebate right now. pic.twitter.com/UgyK3IukZ8
— Grethe Koen (@the_rantingpony) June 18, 2014
2. When he complimented the president, but then whipped out a backhand like this:
“You are a man of tradition Mr President … a tradition of empty promises.”
He didn’t stop there and continued to insult the president some more and then insulted all the members of Parliament while he was at it:
“You keep misleading this Parliament and members keep clapping hands for this mediocrity.” *Burn*
Maiden speech and parly @Julius_S_Malema #SONAdebate pic.twitter.com/eI8EGM5hBH
— Ntokozo Spha Mbatha (@Ntokozo_Shandu) June 18, 2014
3. When he was asked why he was speaking English instead of his home language and he responded:
“I don’t have time for racist questions.” *drops mic*
Malema’s speech had me like #SONAdebate pic.twitter.com/eb0VlwcFD1
— Karala (@ScummGod) June 18, 2014
4. When he sort of said what many people were thinking and he tried to rewrite history on day one:
“Louis Botha’s statue must be extracted and thrown into the dustbin of history … it must go down.”
5. When he dished out friendship advice:
“If you have a white friend who does not know or speak one of the African languages, that is not a friend at all.”
#SONADebate got me like: pic.twitter.com/V7jsdqpPoD
— IG: realbee_m (@REALBoitumelo_M) June 18, 2014
6. And finally, when he tied it all up by offering Zuma some assistance:
“Mr President, maybe we must give you a few tips on what is radical transformation.”
#SONADebate Twitter abuzz as #Malema debates State-of-the-Nation http://t.co/BIKtRw8DG2 pic.twitter.com/IkhPjwRjuF
— TheCitizen Newspaper (@TheCitizen_News) June 18, 2014