Johannesburg – EFF leader Julius Malema called Small Business Minister Lindiwe Zulu a “street girl” on Friday after she was physically restrained during a verbal altercation with one of his party’s MPs.
“She’s a streetmeid (street girl),” he told reporters in Johannesburg.
“She’s got no morals and does not qualify to be a minister taken seriously.”
Tension rose when Zulu and Economic Freedom Fighters MP Godrich Gardee started sparring verbally off microphone inside the National Assembly Chamber on Thursday.
Zulu signalled to Gardee that they take the matter outside the Chamber.
Zulu stormed into the hallway and headed to the doors leading to the side of the House where opposition party members are seated.
Gardee did not emerge from the Chamber, but police officers and members of Parliament’s protection services stood alert.
African National Congress MPs held Zulu back as she shouted: “Where is he?” in her mother tongue.
She was eventually escorted away, and police officers warned those in the hallway to remain calm.
The incident happened during a chaotic sitting of the National Assembly.
Malema said he could not believe an “honourable…, worse, a minister” behaved in that way.
“Those are the things you get in squatter camps and townships and villages where women go to the streets, then they start folding their dresses (saying) ‘come, come I’m waiting for you’.
“How do you take such a thing seriously?”
He said EFF members would never behave in that way…
Related – South Africa’s Parliament in a brawl on camera
South Africa Today – South Africa News
