({{Bloomberg}}) — South African parliamentary Speaker Baleka Mbete apologized for calling opposition party leader Julius Malema a cockroach, saying her comment was inappropriate.
“I withdraw my remarks unreservedly,” Mbete, who is also chairwoman of the ANC, said in a statement on Wednesday. “I apologize unconditionally, to South Africans, to Parliament and honorable Julius Malema for any hurt or harm I may have caused.”
Mbete told members of the ruling African National Congress in the North West province to work together or risk having “cockroaches like Malema roaming about all over the place,” the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times newspaper reported on Feb. 15. The word “cockroach” is a politically loaded one that fueled ethnic hatred during a genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
Mbete on Tuesday declined to answer questions from reporters about the comment.
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