Malema apologises to Zille

2012-06-14 18:30

Julius Malema. (File, Sapa)

Carien du Plessis, City Press

Johannesburg - Expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema and suspended spokesperson Floyd Shivambu have apologised to Western Cape Premier Helen Zille for calling her names during the 2009 election campaign.

In a statement by Zille’s office on Thursday afternoon, Zille said in a settlement reached between the parties, Malema and Shivambu had retracted “various defamatory statements” they made about her at the time.

Zille went to court after they called her a “racist girl” and they accused her of appointing “boyfriends” and “concubines” to her all-male executive.

They also called her executive council a “group of racist Helen Zille garden boys” and referred to her as “racist”, “colonialist” and “imperialist” during the general elections campaign.

Zille went to the Western Cape High Court after she asked them to apologised and they failed to do so.

According to the court order, Malema and Shivambu agreed to “unreservedly apologise” for the defamatory statements they made, and to “unequivocally retract” these.

They also agreed to pay Zille’s taxed legal costs.

After failing to file papers in the case, Malema did so in April after a judge ordered him to do so.

Zille said “these court orders are a victory for constitutional democracy and the norms that the law sets out in terms of defamation.

“There is no room for unfounded defamatory statements in our society,” she said, adding that politics should be about issues, not “baseless insults”.

Shivambu and Malema couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

- City Press