South Africa will become just like other failed African states if President Jacob Zuma is left unchecked, EFF leader Julius Malema said. 

"If a president does not like red berets, a law is passed that all red berets are banned in this country... If the president in South Africa does not like a corruption fighting institution called the Scorpions, they go and close down the scorpion so that he can go and steal R250m - I don't know what is that in pounds," he quipped at the Oxford Union at Oxford University in the United Kingdom on Wednesday. 

Malema was making a reference to the approximately R246m spent on upgrades to Zuma's Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal. 

"Because he does not want to go to prison -- every institution that wants to take him to prison, he closes down that institution," he said. 

"Anyone fighting corruption in SA is the enemy of the president. And if the president is left alone, South Africa will become one of the failed African states, but not under our watch - the EFF has arrived."

Malema said that in South Africa, corruption had become institutionalised. 

"You get a senior position on the basis [of] to what extent you are corrupt. If you are anti-corruption, you will never get a promotion." 

He said the African National Congress had become more politically right-wing, as most of its competition has come from the right. 

"There has never been a legitimate, credible left formation to challenge the ruling party," Malema said.

"Because nature does not like a vacuum, the organisation the Economic Freedom Fighters emerged, and closed that gap." 

- Read more about Malema's comments on white supremacy on Netwerk24.

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