Brawl erupts in S. Africa Parliament

POLITICAL ARENA: Opposition members from the EFF party clash with security guards as they are evicted from the Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, on Tuesday. (Reuters)

CAPE TOWN: A brutal fistfight broke out in the South African Parliament Tuesday as security guards ejected opposition lawmakers in an ugly fracas that underlined heightened political tensions over Jacob Zuma’s presidency.
About 20 Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party members, who were wrestled from their seats by plain-clothed guards, had refused to let Zuma speak and furiously shouted down the Speaker, Baleka Mbete.
As Zuma looked on impassively, the radical leftist lawmakers — dressed in their uniform of red workers’ overalls — fought back to try to remain in the chamber until they were physically removed through a side door.
Before the guards moved in, the EFF members, led by their firebrand “commander in chief” Julius Malema, yelled that it was the president who should be thrown out.
“He broke his oath of office. Zuma is the one who must go,” they shouted.
Outside Parliament, Malema told reporters and cheering supporters: “These bouncers must know that if they give violence, we will respond with violence. We are not scared.”
The disruption was the latest in a series of showdowns in parliament as pressure mounts on Zuma to resign or be axed as president by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
He has been urged to step down by a number of senior ANC veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle, which brought liberation icon Nelson Mandela to power in 1994.
In March, the country’s highest court found that Zuma had violated the constitution over the spending of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on his private rural residence at Nkandla in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
In April another court said he should face almost 800 corruption charges relating to a multi-billion dollar arms deal, that were dropped in 2009, shortly before he became president.
A packed public gallery watched the scuffles in parliament Tuesday, scores of them wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with Zuma’s picture and the slogan: “Accused No.1.”
Zuma has been wounded by months of scandals, including the sacking of two finance ministers in four days in December which rocked the markets and saw the rand currency plummet.