Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) treasurer-general and Tshwane mayoral hopeful Omphile Maotwe has vowed that party president Julius Malema will not spend a day in prison despite his conviction, saying he has done nothing wrong.
Maotwe made the remarks during the Mail & Guardian’s Political Pulse interview on Tuesday.
“We have a full bench now, fresh minds who are going to be looking at this matter. The president of the EFF is not going anywhere. He is going to lead this country not from prison but from here at Winnie Madikizela House.
“People must not be worried about that. He’s not worried at all. We know he remains innocent and he is indeed innocent. This is just meant to destabilise us, destabilise the EFF, but we remain unshaken.”
Last week, Malema was granted leave to appeal his conviction after the KuGompo Magistrate’s Court found him guilty in October last year of contravening the Firearms Control Act.
In April, magistrate Twanet Olivier sentenced him to an effective five years’ imprisonment.
Malema was previously granted leave to appeal against his sentence but not his conviction, following a ruling by Olivier in connection with a 2018 incident in which he was filmed firing a rifle into the air during the party’s fifth-anniversary celebrations in Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape.
In a letter last Tuesday, Justices Tokota and Lowe said that having considered the notice of motion and the record of the proceedings in the matter and having found compelling reasons, they ordered that “leave to appeal against the convictions of the applicant be and is hereby granted to the Full Bench of the Division of the High Court, Makhanda, Eastern Cape”.
Maotwe said the EFF believed the high court would rule in his favour, as Malema had not done anything wrong. She said the state had failed to prove its case.
She added that Malema was being targeted and compared him to former freedom fighter and president Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for his political views and later became president of the Republic.
“We joined the struggle knowing very well that this is the price we are going to pay before we attain economic freedom in our lifetime.
“He is not the first person to go through this process. Even those who led this country, president Mandela went through the same thing. Maybe this is the path for all credible leaders of South Africa which they should pass through, so we are not shaken but he will not see the doors of prison.”