A war of words has ensued between the ANC and AfriForum after the governing party branded the lobby group a racist organisation over its push to have Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula criminally prosecuted.
The clash follows AfriForum’s announcement last week that Mbalula is set to be prosecuted for crimen injuria after he falsely accused former Bergview College principal Jaco Pieterse of rape.
“We’re not going to engage Mr Mbalula through the media. We reiterate that we welcome the NPA’s decision to prosecute him, and he is then welcome to present whatever issues he believes are relevant to his defence during trial,” AfriForum spokesperson Barry Bateman said.
The case dates back to October 2024, when a mother alleged her seven-year-old child was raped at Bergview College in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape. The allegation sparked national outrage.
Many public figures, including EFF leader Julius Malema and Mbalula, publicly accused Pieterse of the crime. Pieterse and the school’s caretaker were targeted and named on social media.
But they were never suspects. Police Minister Senzo Mchunu later apologised to Pieterse for identifying him as a suspect when no evidence linked him to the crime.
Despite being cleared, Mbalula refused to apologise. Instead, he condemned AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit for providing legal assistance to Pieterse.
“You see, when a person is sick, a rape of a 7-year-old, it is not a question of consciousness that you need to convert this person. It is an animal,” Mbalula said at the time.
“AfriForum then goes and defends such people, it’s beyond animals, it’s cannibalism,” he added.
Pieterse then opened a case of crimen injuria against Mbalula, Malema and Eastern Cape Education MEC Fundile Gade. The National Prosecuting Authority initially declined to prosecute, but reversed its decision after pressure from AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit.
The ANC has now launched a scathing attack on the NPA and AfriForum, calling the move irregular and politically motivated.
“It is peculiar, irregular and potentially corrupt that a special interest political outfit, AfriForum, is the first conveyor of a decision by an institution of State,” ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu said.
“The blinding obsession with Mbalula that this special interest political formation has long held is bordering on harassment.”
Bhengu said AfriForum was abusing state institutions to advance its own agenda.
“This activity was carried out by abusing state institutions to advance the nefarious political agendas of AfriForum, its funders, and enablers,” she said.
The ANC defended Mbalula, arguing that his statement followed the public identification of a suspect by the Minister of Police and the SAPS.
“When the Minister acknowledged the identification was incorrect, the ANC acknowledged that correction publicly, through its National Spokesperson,” Bhengu said.
She added that the complaint had been considered by independent prosecutors and closed for lack of merit, only to be revived after representations by one side.
“AfriForum must be called out for what it is, a racist organisation that has made a political project of attacking the ANC and resisting transformation,” Bhengu said.
“It peddles lies to deepen division, then wraps its campaigns in the language of justice. Justice that they had actively denied to black people under apartheid for years.”
She said the attack on Mbalula was part of AfriForum’s broader political playbook.
“At each pivotal moment in the body politic, we are now always awaiting to see what AfriForum shall do to further its naked racist politics,” she said.
“AfriForum longs for a country where black people are expected to bow their heads and answer, ‘Ja baas’. That country is gone, and the ANC will never allow it to return.”
