Former president Jacob Zuma and African National Congress secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, are the reason the Economic Freedom Fighters do not want illiterate leaders, EFF Leader, Julius Malema said on Saturday.

Malema said educated leaders were better than those who were illiterate because the community could count on them.

"Zuma should have been a good example of why we don’t need such things. We must look at him (Zuma) and say something like this must never happen again," he said.

"The ANC is about to commit a similar mistake because it looks like they want Mbalula, so we are not part of that."

Malema was addressing the media on Saturday, and reflecting on the political report and matters related to the national people’s assembly.

The EFF is currently holding its third elective conference at Nasrec Expo Centre in Soweto, Johannesburg.

He stressed that they only wanted to give the best of the best to society and mediocre leaders who could not even read and write.

He made an example of councillors who could not spell some abbreviated words — like the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) — in full yet they wanted to lead.

That cannot happen, he stated.

Meanwhile, written in the policy party documents, the EFF proposed that members who wish to serve in the party's Central Command Team (CCT), must have a post-matric qualification or forget about top positions in the party.

The CCT is the party's highest decision-making body between conferences.

kamogelo.moichela@iol.co.za

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‘We don’t want illiterate leaders,’ Julius Malema rejects 'Jacob Zuma tendencies' in the EFF