HARARE – Zanu PF has branded Julius Malema a “puppet of colonisers” after the South African opposition leader criticised the Zimbabwe government for “tormenting” former President Robert Mugabe, who died on September 6.

Zanu PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo said Zimbabwe’s ruling party found Malema’s comments “reprehensible”, accusing him of using Mugabe’s death “to spew political propaganda and score cheap political mileage.

“While the late Cde Mugabe had always been the national, regional, continental and global esteemed revolutionary icon who relentlessly fought the machinations of the oppressors, it is sad to have a puppet of the same colonisers Cde RG Mugabe fought now in the form of Mr Malema,” Khaya Moyo said in a statement on Tuesday.

Malema, who leads the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), visited Zimbabwe on Monday to pay condolences to the Mugabe family. After a meeting with Grace Mugabe, the late president’s widow, Malema spoke to journalists, taking aim at President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who ousted Mugabe in a military coup in 2017.

The EFF leader accused Mnangagwa of “opportunism”, saying the Zanu PF leader “wants to ride on the legacy of President Mugabe even when they tormented him to the last day.”

“I think there are others who envy him, but there can only be one Robert Mugabe. These are chancers, so they shouldn’t even try and want to be like him, they won’t even come anywhere close to him,” Malema said, referring to Mnangagwa and his lieutenants.

Malema also claimed Mugabe had been denied his pension benefits while hammering Mnangagwa for denying Mugabe his wish to be buried in Kutama, where he grew up.

“It’s an absolute nonsense that you think declaring a person a national hero takes away the right of the family over the deceased,” Malema said, referring to alleged moves by Mnangagwa’s aides to lean on the family to agree to bury Mugabe at the National Heroes Acre in Harare.

“The family, especially the surviving spouse, has got the last word. It doesn’t matter whether you have declared a person a national hero, whether you are doing a state funeral, every little detail of what you want to do around a dead body should be consulted with the family particularly when we are Africans,” said Malema.

Khaya Moyo said “whilst it is everyone’s democratic right to mourn the founding father, former President Robert Mugabe, including the restless and careless Malema, it is an abomination and unAfrican to use such a platform to denigrate virtues which define ubuntu.”

Malema and the EFF did not immediately respond to the attacks.