Johannesburg - EFF MPs disrupted President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Q&A session on Thursday, forcefully speaking out of turn on more than one occasion.
The EFF had taken exception to Ramaphosa displaying his fireplace at the Union Buildings and were calling on Deputy Speaker Lechesa Tsenoli to rule that the president should use the virtual Parliament background during his virtual appearance in Parliament.
When this was rejected by Tsenoli, EFF MPs who were mostly taking part in the Q&A session from their homes, started speaking at once shouting into their microphones.
Tsenoli ordered Parliamentary aides to switch off the microphones of EFF MPs to which one MP exclaimed "there is nothing you can do".
An agitated Tsenoli fired back: “You think there is nothing I can do, you watch this space,” said Tsenoli.
Chants of "tell Ramaphosa to put the background" and "whose mics are you switching off" reverberated for some time until calm was restored.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/RamaphosaQandA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RamaphosaQandA pic.twitter.com/OGpEDSKxuS
— Gxarha ✊🏾♥️🇿🇦 (@Siseko_SG)
Another flashpoint was that one of the EFF MPs also accused Ramaphosa of staging a coup d'etat against former president Jacob Zuma when Ramaphosa came into office two years ago.
Jackson Mthembu, Minister in the Presidency, said there was no such coup and called for Tsenoli to order EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu to withdraw his comments.
Tsenoli delayed the ruling, but Shivambu said he would not withdraw.
“I was not going to withdraw (even if you asked me),” said Shivambu.
Tsenoli promised action would be taken against the EFF MPs when Malema fired at him: "Stop behaving like you are drunk."