The country was dying a slow death under the ANC

Cape Town – EFF leader Julius Malema told the ANC on Tuesday to "jump into the nearest hell”.

The country was dying a slow death under the ANC, he said in the National Assembly, during a debate on the August 3 local government elections.

The ANC had dug its own grave, which was why it lost a number of municipalities to the DA and other opposition parties.

He said voting with the DA in hung municipalities was an emergency measure. The party would go back to fighting white monopoly capital once it had rescued the country from the brink of collapse.

“I hear people, and the ANC, saying we are voting for a white party.”

The ANC had worked with the National Party in the fight for democracy, he said.

'Instagram celebrity' ministers

"We will never vote for a party presided over by a person who defied the Constitution. This is the party that killed our people in Marikana. We will never vote for you. He will never get our vote," he said, referring to President Jacob Zuma.

Malema said the ANC should not blame the EFF for losing metros such as Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane. 

“We don't vote for crooks, we don't vote for kleptocracy. We don't vote for a party that is going to pass a nuclear deal that is going to collapse this country. Zuma wants to enrich his family and he will never get our vote.”

He told the ANC to get their "Instagram celebrity" ministers to vote and campaign for the party.

“Don't blame it on the EFF. It is of your own making. You've got yourself to blame. You are self-destructing. You can jump into the nearest hell,” he told ANC MPs.

Self-inflicted setbacks

ANC Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu said their engagements with the EFF had convinced them the  party was driven by bitterness and vengeance and had nothing to offer people.

The ANC remained the people's choice and the losses it suffered at the polls were not because any other party was better than it. 

“The losses and setbacks suffered in these elections are self-inflicted. The message sent to us by our people by not voting in their majority, and including many who abstained and decided to stay at home, has been loud and clear and we have heard it,” he said.

The party would change its behaviour and the perception that it was aloof, inward-looking, self-serving, and arrogant.

DA leader Mmusi Maimane said millions of voters chose hope over fear in the elections.

“They refused to succumb to divisive race-based rhetoric, because they know that we are better together. So, to my ANC colleagues on the other side of this House, the lesson of this election is very clear: never take the voters for granted.”

He said voters would throw politicians out of office if they were disrespected.