There was ample warning for this. Julius Malema told supporters at a rally back in March to deface the statue in Cape Town.

I’m challenging you‚ the fighters of Western Cape‚ that statue of Louis Botha at Parliament‚ it must go down and how it goes down is your business. How it goes down‚ I’m not interested. Make a plan for that statue.

The statue of Paul Kruger in Pretoria had green paint thrown at it this past weekend.

We knew it was going to happen. So why did no one try to prevent it?

The statue is of the first Prime Minister of the South African Union sitting proudly on his horse and it has been the source of much controversy for some time. Last year already, Malema challenged the position of the statue:

Louis Botha is not our hero and cannot be a hero of a democratic South Africa. He is a colonial warmonger‚ who fought for the exclusion of black and indigenous people from running their own country and affairs.

This morning Botha was decorated in red and blue paint.

It’s not clear yet who did the artistic painting, but I think we can assume it had something to do with the EFF and Jules’ pep talks.

[Source: TimesLive]