It was just before sunset, On the slopes of Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, in KwaZulu-Natal’s (KZN) uThungulu district, when EFF leader Julius Malema and his cohorts walked out of the former president’s quarters to mark the end of the urgent ‘tea party’.
What was the ‘tea party’ about? – EFF briefs media
Party spokesperson Vuyani Pambo was courteous enough to join a group of journalists who had spent most of the day parked outside the entrance of the multi-acre homestead, waiting with great anticipation for a debrief.
The first and only question put before Pambo was a probe on the contents of the meeting that’s rumoured to have been attended by ANC NEC member Tony Yengeni.
However, in a flatulent turnout, Pambo opted to toy with the journalists, stressing that the meeting was merely about tea, and nothing else.
“The meeting went very well. The tea was nice and sweet and very hot. So, you know the practice of having tea is such that, you know, a slow process. You can’t just gulp it like you drink other things,” he said, directing the subliminal jab towards SABC News political journalist Samkelo Maseko.
Was ‘president’ Malema reference a slip of the tongue?
Pambo continued the mockery, averting all possibility of a dignified debrief of a political gathering that has unsettled the nation. However, in his utterances, there were moments when the EFF spokesperson referred to a tea party attended by “the president and the former president.”
Pambo even reiterated that by president, he was referring to the EFF’s commander-in-chief. Of course, president, in political jargon, isn’t a word that’s tossed around loosely.
Was this a subliminal inference of a resolution taken in the meeting to no longer recognise Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency? If anything, the debrief left more questions unanswered than when the envoy of EFF officials were seen entering the Nkandla compound.
At the time this article was published, neither the former president nor Malema had released a statement.
Ramaphosa, on the other hand, batted for his longtime cadre. The president urged South Africa to allow Zuma time to brood over his recent antics.
“I would like to say let’s give former president Jacob Zuma time and space to think about this, and also to hear what other people are saying …and in giving consideration to this, I’m sure he will come to a conclusion. I prefer to leave it there,” he said.