Malema to AfriForum: 'Maybe it's time for us to engage face to face'

EFF leader Julius Malema opened a hornet's nest on Thursday when he tweeted a message to AfriForum suggesting a meeting take place between them.

The lobby group has received widespread criticism after its submission to the Joint Constitutional Review Committee on land expropriation without compensation.

EWN reported that AfriForum's deputy CEO Ernst Roets said MPs were "drunk" on ideology. He also said the idea that land had been stolen from black South Africans was not factually correct.

The comments received a backlash from political parties including the IFP, UDM, ANC and EFF. News24 quoted EFF MP Tebogo Mokwele as saying "you took everything that belongs to us. This is why you are so arrogant to us. You think we are inhuman."

On Thursday night, AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel appeared on the eNCA show Let's Have it Out, with legal expert Pierre de Vos standing in as the host.

Kriel dismissed comments that AfriForum was a "whites only" organisation and said it had represented several cases involving people of colour.

Malema's calls for a meeting drew mixed reaction on Twitter. The post had received more than 533 comments, 1,000 shares and 3,700 likes at the time of publishing this article.