Sports, arts and culture minister Gayton McKenzie has again hit back at EFF leader Julius Malema after Malema called him a “lepantiti” (jailbird) during a National Assembly plenary session on Wednesday.

McKenzie said on Thursday he would not be bullied or bothered by “people going through a serious divorce”.

Malema was removed from the online platform after calling McKenzie a jailbird.

“That person [McKenzie] is a lepantiti and he knows that. Referring to him as a jailbird is not untruthful, it’s not vulgar, that’s what he is. He has also admitted that he is a jailbird. He is proud of that.

“A jailbird of a minister,” Malema said repeatedly.

During the department’s heritage month launch on Thursday in Pretoria, McKenzie took the opportunity to address Malema again, stating he was not bothered by his insults.

He highlighted his recent appointment by President Cyril Ramaphosa to represent him at events in Paris at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.

“Macron invited Ramaphosa to functions in Paris. Ramaphosa said he shall be represented by the honourable Gayton McKenzie.

“Now you hear that yesterday in parliament we had a fight. They called me a ‘lepantiti’. I can’t get angry because in life, you must always consider the source — who’s speaking — before you react.

“If Ramaphosa, whom we all love, recommends that I speak to his equal in France and sees me as worthy of sending to functions in Paris, how can I worry about people going through a serious divorce in the progressive alliance? When they say the revolution will eat its children, they are talking about that arrangement they are having there,” McKenzie said.

Taking to Twitter on Friday, McKenzie, without mentioning Malema by name, said he would not be bullied by anybody.

“You have bullied, interrupted, and insulted MPs in full view of South Africans. I will never be a victim of your ungovernableness because I am equally ungovernable when the situation demands. You got away with it because people let it pass, I am not that type.”

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