The EFF, the Fighters for Economic Freedom party, celebrates its 10th anniversary. And one of the events organized arouses controversy: the party of Julius Malema brought in the Kenyan pan-Africanist lawyer Patrick Lumumba on Monday. An embarrassing guest for the radical left party, since Patrick Lumumba supported the Ugandan government during the passage of the “anti-homosexuality” law, while the EFF had opposed it.
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With our correspondent in Johannesburg, Claire Bargeles
During a little less than an hour of conference, Patrick Lumumba returned to several points in common that he shares with the EFF, around the rejection of Western influence, international financial institutions, and advocating a “ decolonization of minds by summoning all the great African figures.
But for the Kenyan lawyer, it is these same ideas that have pushed him, in recent months, to be “ 100% with President Museveni and Ugandan parliamentarians, around this very repressive law against the community LGBT+. A law he sees as “ a challenge to Western countries “.
A point of view that does not really agree with the images of Julius Malema who went to the embassy three months agoUgandain Pretoria, covered in a rainbow flag in protest.
The EFF justified the holding of this conference in order to confront different opinions. However, at no time were questions on the subject posed to Patrick Lumumba, who was able to take advantage of the open forum to praise the merits of the radical left party.
Before the conference, a hundred people had gathered on the esplanade of the university to protest against the choice of this speaker.
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