EFF, Land Party throw chairs at one another during violent Hout Bay election debate

The campaign race is heating up for all 48 parties on the voter’s roll ahead of 8 May’s National General Election. But while you’ve heard plenty of hot air from the DA and ANC thus far, it’s the smaller parties who haven’t quite had a chance to air their views.

In the Cape Town suburb of Hout Bay on Friday, four parties were given that chance. But what was supposed to be a constructive debate giving a voice to parties that don’t usually get much screen time, turned into an episode of WWE RAW.

The ridiculous scenes were captured by rolling SABC cameras, and is still available on YouTube at the time of writing. The clip has since garnered more than 7000 views with an overwhelming number of dislikes.

The eight-minute clip begins with a relatively calm Black First Land First (BLF) chairperson for the Western Cape on stage reading the party’s plans. On the audience floor however, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Land Party supporters were shown launching chairs at one another. The rate of chair tossing increases exponentially beyond the three minute mark of the nine-minute long clip.

BLF and Good Party members were also caught in the crossfire.

The broadcast and the debate itself was called off soon after the chaos erupted, but there have been no reports of any severe injuries.

Might be a good idea to replace chairs with bean bags for the next event.

Feature image: screenshot, SABC via YouTube