‘They assaulted me to protect Ramaphosa,’ says Carl Niehaus after Phala Phala ruling

As I sat in the Constitutional Court last Friday, the weight of years pressed down on my chest like the very handcuffs the police had once snapped on me. Chief Justice Mandisa Maya delivered the lead judgment as the majority of the full bench of the Constitutional Court ruled that the ANC’s cynical vote on December 13, 2022 to bury the Section 89 Independent Panel Report into Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala scandal was unconstitutional and invalid. In a majority decision, with three separate judgments delivered, the Court rejected Parliament’s actions, set aside the defective 214 to 148 vote, declared the relevant parliamentary rules inconsistent with the Constitution, and ordered the immediate establishment of an impeachment committee to begin the process anew. In that moment, a flood of memories crashed over me—rage, pain, betrayal, and a fierce, unquenchable defiance. Tears stung my eyes, not from weakness, but from the raw vindication that comes only after you have been hunted, broken, and left for politically destroyed and dead by the very movement you once believed in.

Let me take you back to that sweltering Tuesday in December 2022. Inside the National Assembly, the ANC caucus—those spineless, self-serving sell-outs—lined up like sheep to slaughter the truth. The Independent Panel of Jurists, appointed under Section 89 of the Constitution, had delivered a damning report. It found prima facie evidence that Ramaphosa had violated his oath, that the Phala Phala foreign-currency stash, the illegal dollar dealings, the cover-up, the abuse of state resources—all of it pointed to serious misconduct warranting impeachment proceedings. The Constitution demanded accountability. History, the blood of our liberation struggle, demanded it. But the ANC chose the man over the people. With mechanical loyalty to their leader, they voted the slavish party line and voted 214 to 148 against referring it to an impeachment committee. They buried it. They protected their president at the expense of the Constitution they swore to uphold.

There was one solitary exception, and her courage still burns in my memory: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Alone among the ANC MPs, she voted with her conscience. She stood against the tide of cowardice and corruption. The rest? They were traitors to the revolution that had birthed them. While standing outside Parliament, the news came out of the treacherous vote, and my fists clenched so tight, my nails drew blood. These were the same people who had once marched with us against apartheid. Now they marched in lockstep to shield a billionaire president whose farm had become a symbol of elite impunity. The betrayal cut deeper than any knife. It was the ANC turning its back on the poor, the unemployed, the landless—the very masses who had carried them to power. They chose patronage over principle, Ramaphosa’s millions over the Constitution. That day the ANC died in my soul.

Outside Parliament, we refused to be silent. A small but determined group of comrades and concerned citizens gathered to protest this obscene protection racket. We held placards that screamed the truth: “Ramaphosa Must Go,” “Phala Phala is Corruption,” “Section 89 Now!” We chanted. We sang struggle songs. Our protest was peaceful, disciplined, rooted in the same non-violent defiance that had toppled the Boers. But the ANC regime had other plans. Under direct instructions from the Minister of Police Bheki Cele and the Deputy Minister of State Security Zizi Kodwa, the police moved in like thugs in uniform. They shoved us, kicked us, dragged us. Together with other comrades, I was assaulted with rubber batons and perspex shields—grabbed, slammed against a barrier, and thrown to the ground with such force that I felt my back snap. The pain was immediate, searing, a white-hot stab that has never fully left me. I still live with that injury today, a permanent reminder of the state’s willingness to break bodies to protect one man.

My fellow comrades fared no better. I watched in horror as elderly women and young activists were pushed over and trampled. Television footage showed the brutal assaults. Newspaper reports and television footage accurately showed the brutality of the attacks on myself and fellow comrades. All of it captured on video—the same video I posted in my X Spaces that day and again recently so the world could see the thuggery. We were not criminals. We were citizens exercising our constitutional right to protest the betrayal of our democracy. But to the ANC, we were enemies to be crushed.

That assault was only the beginning of the war they waged against us. In the years that followed, the ANC machine went into overdrive to destroy us—financially, professionally, psychologically. I lost my job. Doors slammed shut everywhere. Blacklisting became an art form: ANC deployees in SOEs, banks, media houses ensured that anyone who dared demand Ramaphosa’s impeachment was unemployable. We were financially ruined, reduced to scraping by while the Phala Phala millions flowed untouched. Propaganda campaigns painted us as “counter-revolutionaries,” “racists,” “troublemakers.” Vicious personal attacks flooded social media—death threats, character assassinations, lies so grotesque they would have made Goebbels blush. The establishment tried to wipe us off the face of the earth. They wanted us broken, silent, erased. Some comrades cracked under the pressure. Families disintegrated. Suicides were whispered about. I myself stared into the abyss of financial and personal distress. But I never wavered in my determination and commitment. I was clear that I would never give up the fight to get Ramaphosa held accountable and to see the objectives of our revolution realised — to secure full justice and economic freedom in our land. I knew that I owed that to my fellow comrades who have laid down their lives in the struggle. Never for one second did I waverin that commitment.

Yet, here we are. Last Friday’s majority Constitutional Court judgment was not just a legal breakthrough—it was moral vindication for every one of us who refused to bow. The majority of the full bench of the Constitutional Court confirmed what we knew in our bones: the ANC’s vote was an unconstitutional farce, a naked attempt to shield a president from the consequences of his own actions. Phala Phala was never just about a few dollars in a couch. It was about a pattern—state capture, elite protection, the slow rot of the liberation movement into a vehicle for personal enrichment. Ramaphosa’s other crimes—the CR17 funding scandals, the misuse of intelligence, the endless contradictions—still demand answers.

I want to express my deepest, most forceful appreciation to my party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, and especially to my leader, Commander-in-Chief Julius Malema. From the very beginning, the EFF and Julius Malema refused to allow any cover-up. They stood like a steel wall against the ANC’s protection racket, ensuring that Phala Phala would never be swept under the carpet. They pushed relentlessly, fearlessly, and with revolutionary clarity, making sure that no amount of ANC manipulation could bury the truth. Because of their unyielding stance, Phala Phala will never die — it will live on until full accountability is achieved and Ramaphosa is held to answer for every act of corruption and betrayal. Thank you, EFF. Thank you, Julius Malema. Your courage has kept the fire of justice burning when others tried to extinguish it.

But let me be clear: this is not the end. It is the beginning of the real fight. We must never give up. Not now, not ever. I refuse to let the pain of that back injury, the humiliation of being dragged like a dog that day in front of Parliament, the assaults, the personal attacks, the propaganda character assassinations, the years of poverty and persecution be in vain. We must keep pushing, keep exposing, keep mobilising until Cyril Ramaphosa stands before a proper impeachment committee and answers for every rand, every cover-up, every betrayal. He must be impeached. Not as revenge, but as justice. The people of South Africa deserve a president who fears the Constitution more than he fears losing his fortune.

To every comrade who stood with me that day, to every South African who has been crushed by this corrupt regime, I say: A Luta Continua—the struggle continues. They tried to destroy us, but we are still here. Bloodied, scarred, but unbroken. The Constitutional Court has given us the legal opening. Now we must seize it with the same fire that burned in us outside Parliament on 13 December 2022. Ramaphosa’s protection racket is crumbling. The ANC’s house of cards is shaking. We will not stop until accountability is delivered, until the betrayers are exposed, until South Africa belongs once more to its people and not to a cabal of billionaire protectors.

The tears I shed in court last Friday were not of defeat. They were of defiant hope. We were right all along. And we will win. History demands it. The Constitution demands it. Our children’s future demands it. Never again will we allow a president to hide behind a parliamentary majority while the country bleeds. Ramaphosa must go. Impeachment now. The fight is far from over—but we have only just begun.

* Ambassador Carl Niehaus is an EFF member of parliament.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.