The Economic Freedom Fighters has called for former president, F.W de Klerk to not be given a state funeral in a media statement on Thursday, 11 November 2021.

The death of the former president has been met with mixed reactions by South Africans after the FW de Klerk Foundation confirmed his passing. The Economic Freedom Fighters have now come forward to say that De Klerk holds no legitimate claim to any title or honour of having led the country and as such should not be given a state send off.

“He was a president of an undemocratic and racist society, which elected him as a minority. He was a president who led on the basis of the political and economic disenfranchisement of the majority black population of South Africa,” the EFF said.

“It is this very reason that the EFF calls for De Klerk not to be given a state funeral of any category, as he lost the right to be honoured the day that the evil regime he led collapsed in 1994. It was the Apartheid era that is best placed to honour De Klerk as its loyal servant, not a democratic society that is committed to reversing the ills of the dark days of black exploitation,” added the EFF.

The EFF further stated that honouring F.W de Klerk with a state funeral would be a spit in the face of gallant liberation heroes who suffered in his hands and had their children murdered in his quest to stifle the freedom of black people. “A state funeral for F.W de Klerk would be an insult to the families of the cradock four, it would undermine the memory of the people of Boipatong, Mthatha, Bisho, the people of Vosloorus and many communities who were maimed by his state-sponsored black on black violence,” the EFF said.

The party further threatened to oppose through protest saying that it cannot be the democracy that De Klerk killed so many people to prevent that honours him.