Speaking during a briefing on the Phala Phala saga and steps to remove the president from office, held in Houghton earlier this week, Malema reportedly said that Fraser was working with Mbeki, who he said had an axe to grind over his early departure as president. In a post on the former president’s official Facebook page, he’s rejected Malema’s "scuttlebutt with the contempt it deserves".

He believes Malema’s claims originate “from the old apartheid machinery” and said that they were intended “to deepen division within the ANC and to frustrate efforts towards the organisation’s renewal”. Fraser earlier this year announced that he had opened charges against the president, emanating from the his alleged concealment of the theft of millions of undeclared US dollars that he had been hiding away at his Phala Phala farm. The president has been reluctant to answer questions on the incident but his office insists that there “is no basis for the claims of criminal conduct”.