Julius Malema has been going full-Trump on Twitter for a while now, but let’s start at the beginning.

The EFF was going about their merry way, chanting “pay back the money” at every opportunity, when journalist Pauli van Wyk’s investigative exposé revealed ties between the EFF and the VBS Mutual Bank scandal.

Awkward.

In classic EFF style, Malema and his cronies have taken to creating as much of a spectacle as humanly possible to distract from this – and a lot of it is happening on Twitter.

Malema went so far as to call Van Wyk “Satan”.

Van Wyk isn’t the only one on the receiving end of social media abuse. Many of the journalists who have taken a stance against the EFF have received similar treatment. In some cases, the threats have been physical.

As I said, he’s going full-Trump. Here’s The South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) in The Citizen:

“Earlier this week, Malema named several journalists and called on EFF supporters to ‘deal with them decisively’,”  Sanef said in a statement issued after its last council meeting for 2018 on Saturday.

“Following his [Malema’s] comments, we have seen some of the journalists physically accosted and abused on social media. One journalist was verbally threatened outside the venue of the Zondo commission, where Malema had made some of these threats. In another incident, a senior editor [Ranjeni Munusamy] was accosted by three men who shouted her surname and mocked her while she was out shopping,” Sanef said.

Malema went on to attack Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan outside the venue where he was testifying before the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture, in a move that may have been a step too far.

Gordhan isn’t having it, and has laid charges of criminal defamation, crimen injuria, incitement of violence against the EFF leader, reports News24.

Speaking to media outside the Brooklyn Police Station after opening the case, the minister said: “I think what we’re saying to South Africans is that we can’t any longer allow the corruption that’s going at all levels in this country to be masked by racism, by personal attacks, by family attacks and of course political attacks as well. So we have decided enough is enough.

“If you want to argue with us politically that’s fine but once you lie and you attack families, and you propagate these lies widely enough, but you also start dividing South African society then it is totally unacceptable. Because race is a very inflammable factor in South Africa.”

Malema propagated lies about Gordhan’s daughter Anisha, claiming that contracts that she was involved in were awarded through nepotism. There is zero evidence to back this up.

When contacted for comment about the charges laid against him, Malema refused to reply, saying only, “Yah, get your reaction from your racist editor Adriaan Basson.”

On Friday, Basson, News24 Editor-in-Chief, wrote a column critical of the EFF leader’s attacks on Gordhan and Advocate Paul Pretorius SC, an evidence leader for the commission of inquiry into state capture.

Despite the charges against him, Malema has continued to spurt out racist and incoherent rants on social media and at EFF meetings, geared towards getting a rise out of Gordhan while stoking public unrest. He’s also on a mission to discredit the press.

One word – tsek.

[source:citizen&news24]