Members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) were forcibly removed from the Gauteng Legislature on Tuesday by ANC Speaker in the legislature Ntombi Mekgwe, who regarded their outfits as unsavoury.
The members were asked to leave the State of the Province debate as they were dressed in the party’s red overalls. A scuffle between EFF members and the police ensued as the former had to be removed by force. More pics after cut...
The EFF later claimed that its members had been manhandled by the police, with one member apparently suffering a broken arm and another in ‘critical’ condition in hospital after an asthma attack.
EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi decried the situation, saying that the members were kicked out because they ‘refuse to wear suits’, and not because they were ‘imposing themselves’.
He added that the speaker seemed to have forgotten that the EFF was part of the legislature because over a million South African citizens had voted for it.
As a result of the incident, several of the party’s members decided to protest outside the legislature on Wednesday, bearing placards with the slogan “Legislature is not fashion show” in capital letters. Many members also flashed cards that accused the ANC government of killing the mineworkers at Marikana in August 2012.
The EFF would be launching a court application to stop the legislature from dismissing them based on their outfits, and concluded, “Legislature is a place of work and it must represent the people: EFF is there to say the regalia of workers is also welcome in the Houses of Parliament as part of respectable and honourable decorum. Workers keep South Africa moving and there is nothing dishonourable about the clothes they wear when they keep our lives moving.”
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