You are wrong about Kenya, Raila party tells Malema over his condemnation of protests

**ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna addresses the press in a previous event.** [Edward Kiplimo, Standard]

ODM has told off South African opposition politician Julius Malema over his condemnation of the protests in Kenya.

The Orange party took issue with Malema's remarks that the protests were destabilising the country, saying that the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party leader had fallen for Kenya Kwanza's "propaganda" about the demos.

In a statement, ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna said the opposition was fighting for a more accommodating democratic space and accused President William Ruto of entrenching dictatorship.

"It is clear that Comrade Malema, watching Kenya from a distance, is not familiar with the delicate sociopolitical fault lines in our nation, and makes the faulty assumption that his approach in fighting injustices in South Africa can be replicated here," said Sifuna.

He noted that Kenya's problem is that those in the struggle had never risen to power courtesy of situations that have ensured that free-will is stifled.

"If Comrade Malema lived in a nation perennially led by collaborators and former homeguards, thieves and liars, who not only steal elections at will, but routinely send police to shoot unarmed civilians in a re-enaction of South Africa's own Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 or the Marikana Massacre of 2012, he would hold different views," the Nairobi senator said.

On Saturday during EFF's 10th anniversary, Malema attacked Raila over calls for demos.

"We want to make a call in Kenya, especially to Comrade Raila Odinga. Stop doing what you are doing. Do not disrupt Kenya... President William Ruto was democratically elected," he said in a stinging speech that also highlighted the socialist struggle which EFF identifies with.

Sifuna defended the protests as people-driven owing to the current economic pressures.

"Indeed, if Comrade Malema had bothered to look beyond the Kenya Kwanza regime propaganda, he would know that the recent protests in Kenya were against obscenely high taxes, rising cost of living and government refusal to listen to the people. I have no doubt that if Malema was Kenyan, his red army would have joined us in their numbers on the streets," said the Senate Deputy Minority Whip.

He argued that unlike South Africa's "strong multiparty democracy" with robust checks on excesses, Kenya was still grappling with deeply-rooted electoral fraud, and Azimio's struggle would ensure a more perfect nation.

He further stated that EFF had more in common with ODM, as both were left leaning.

He invited Malema to Kenya so that he can take him on a tour of the country "so that he understands that we fight for the same things he does".