EFF warns rights 'are being eroded' by ruling ANC

"It is a fact that when the ANC government killed people in Marikana, Mothutlung, Relela and in many other protests across the country it was in violation of their right to life and protest," said the EFF in a statement posted on its website and attributed to party national spokesman, Mbuyiseni Quintin Ndlozi.

"Any government in the world, even if voted by the majority, is illegitimate if it can kill its own people with impunity."

The EFF, which said "we celebrate the political gains that came with the end of apartheid in 1994", however, added that 22 years into democracy "our country" was beginning to "experience the erosion of these freedoms and rights".

The party led by Julius Malema said "the government of the day" was also eroding the fundamental ideal of the rule of law, which is premised on the fact that all shall be equal before the law.

"Many politicians of the ANC publicly break the law and nothing ever happens to them," said the EFF in the statement posted on Wednesday to coincide with Freedom Day.

"The ANC president violated the constitution, above benefiting from a corrupt upgrade of his private home, and he is still allowed to preside over the very constitution he has violated."

Last month the Constitutional Court found that President Jacob Zuma failed to "uphold, defend and respect the Constitution" when he ignored the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's remedial action regarding upgrades at his Nkandla private residence.

The remedial action required Zuma to pay for non-security upgrades that included an amphitheatre, cattle kraal and swimming pool. The upgrades cost the state about R250m.

The EFF, which has been criticised for remarks by its leader Malema about "removing" the ANC-led government, said the greatest threat to the ideal of the "rule of law" was the ANC.

The EFF claimed that the ANC "as a collective" not only protects those who break the law, but also rewards them with government positions.

The poor, who are black in their majority, remain in desperate poverty and dire living conditions because "our democracy" fails to translate into economic freedom, said the EFF.

"The only day this democracy will be sustainable and of quality is if it delivers land to the landlessness. Without the land our democracy traps the whole society into a fast approaching time bomb," said the EFF.

"The EFF believes that to honour and celebrate twenty [two] years of democratic society is to lead a process of land redistribution on an urgent basis.

"Economic freedom whose starting point is access to land is the most urgent need for the sustenance of democracy moving forward. Any democracy built on landlessness is doomed to fail, because without land majority of our people cannot legitimately claim this country as their own." - ANA