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Jacob Zuma

Johannesburg — President Jacob Zuma has described Ronnie Kasrils’s spoil-your-ballot campaign as a “very funny thing”, SABC radio news reported yesterday.
Zuma told the state broadcaster he hoped he would get an opportunity to talk to the former intelligence minister and African National Congress stalwart about the campaign he launched on Tuesday.
Zuma said the ANC, including Kasrils, had fought hard for the right to vote.

“He himself fought for the right for people to vote and people have got a right to vote in any other way. It’s a very funny view that he has. He was not just a comrade to me — he was a friend, but I think over the years he has drifted to some world that I don’t understand.

“Maybe at some point I’ll have an opportunity to meet him  and engage him. He knows I can engage and I know he can engage as well,” Zuma said.
The “Sidikiwe! Vukani! Vote Campaign” calls on South Africans to either vote for a minority party, or spoil their ballots.

“If the ANC were to lose three, four percent in this election they’ll still be in power, nothing will stop that,” Kasrils told reporters at the launch at Wits University in Johannesburg.

“But what that signals… is that, my God you guys [ANC] better wake up… you’re not going to last for five years, you’re losing more and more respect.”
Meanwhile, EFF leader Julius Malema says he does not hate white people, and there will not be a white genocide under his rule.

“I do not hate white people. I want us to share in the countries [sic] wealth which is in the hands of the minority,” he said in an online chat on social networking site Facebook on Tuesday.

“There will never be a white genocide under our rule.”
Malema said South Africa was meant to be shared.

“White people are more than welcome to play a role in the EFF. SA is for them too.”
Malema was responding to questions from the public for an hour on Tuesday ahead of the May 7 general election. Many of the questions remained unanswered.

Malema said the EFF was against corruption.
“All leaders found guilty of corruption will not be allowed to operate in a leadership position within the EFF,” he said.

Malema himself faces fraud and corruption charges related to a R52m contract being awarded to On-Point Engineering. The state alleged that Malema substantially benefited from the tender payment to On-Point, using it to buy a farm and a Mercedes-Benz. It claimed that Malema’s Ratanang Family Trust was an indirect shareholder in On-Point. His case was due to be heard in September in the Limpopo High Court in Polokwane.

In March, The Star reported that charges against four of his alleged business associates had been dismissed.
Malema had made representation to the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) to have the charges against him dropped. The NDPP had not yet made a decision.

Malema was also trying to settle his tax bill to avoid being barred from Parliament.
On February 10, Malema was provisionally sequestrated by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.

Malema and anyone else who did not want the order to be made final had until 10:00AM on 26 May to give reasons as to why this should not happen.
On Tuesday, Facebooker Tommy Thomo Talana asked Malema who will lead the EFF in Parliament if the final sequestration order is granted.
“That will never happen,” said Malema. — Sapa