Expelled from the African National Congress for ill-discipline, Malema has capitalised on wildcat miners’ strikes to emerge as a champion for impoverished blacks whose lives have changed little since apartheid ended in 1994.
At a ten-minute hearing in Polokwane, capital of Malema’s native Limpopo province, prosecutors accused the former ANC youth leader of “improperly” receiving 4.2 million rand in a conspiracy involving state tenders.
Having ditched his trademark Che Guevara-style black beret and t-shirt for a grey suit and red tie, Malema emerged to play the crowd with an irreverent roasting of Zuma, who faces an internal ANC leadership election in December.
“He can stick the charges up his ass,” Malema said in the native Pedi language, to cheers and laughter from around 1,000 supporters hemmed in by police and razor wire in Polokwane, 350 km (220 miles) north of Johannesburg.
Prosecutors, he said, were simply taking orders from Zuma to “catch this boy”. “In South Africa, a banana republic, being next to Julius Malema is a criminal offence,” he added.
“I’ve never been part of any criminal activity. I will never be part of any criminal activity,” Malema said.
“They are sent by Jacob Zuma because Jacob Zuma knows nothing – the illiterate Jacob Zuma,” he added. “I’m unshaken. I’m not intimated by nonsense. They are wasting time.”