Zuma backers promise to ‘boo Ramaphosa back’
President Jacob Zuma’s faction has vowed to destabilise Cyril Ramaphosa’s unofficial campaign, which has been gaining momentum, after the head of state was humiliated in Bloemfontein on Monday.
Cosatu has declared its support for Ramaphosa to succeed Zuma as ANC president.
Cosatu members booed the president at a Workers’ Day event in Bloemfontein, which ultimately resulted in the cancellation of the main May Day function.
ANC Youth League president Collen Maine did not mince his words on Tuesday when reacting to Zuma’s treatment.
The ANC youth and women’s leagues have chosen to support Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
“We are going to boo Ramaphosa back and it won’t be nice. We are going to make life difficult for him. We are going to boo him in an ANC meeting before we boo him at a rally.”
Maine said the rejection of Zuma by workers was done in Ramaphosa’s name. “People were mobilised by the antiZuma faction to embarrass Zuma,” he said. Zuma, Baleka Mbete and Jessie Duarte were booed, but Ramaphosa, Gwede Mantashe and Zweli Mkhize were allowed to speak.
“We are alive to the fact that this is informed by the factional battles within the ANC.”
Also on Tuesday, Umkhonto we Sizwe Association chairman Kebby Maphatsoe warned Cosatu members not to provoke the ANC. “Cosatu has just come out of ICU … it should focus on workers,” he said.
Maine seemed to have forgotten that his members in KwaZulu-Natal booed Mkhize and Pravin Gordhan in April, which the youth league president did not condemn.
South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Solly Mapaila was also heckled by pro-Zuma ANC members at a wreath-laying ceremony for Chris Hani.
The alliance partners were still reeling on Tuesday after the heckling of Zuma.
Cosatu is expected to hold an urgent special central committee meeting next week to discuss the incident. The meeting may also discuss whether to ask the ANC not to deploy Zuma to the federation’s mid-term policy gathering at the end of May.
On Tuesday there were calls for unity from the ANC. Spokesman Zizi Kodwa said public displays of disunity served only to weaken the alliance.
He said the party would “redouble its efforts” at unity.
Cosatu spokesman Sizwe Pamla said it was receiving reports from the provinces after Zuma’s heckling.
Cosatu has called on Zuma to step down and declared that the federation had lost trust in him.
At a recent central executive committee meeting, it agreed to invite Zuma to address the central committee in his capacity as ANC president, but it also agreed that its preferred candidate, Ramaphosa, should also address the meeting.
Pamla said that in the light of Monday’s events, the federation needed to revisit this decision as it might “pose the same challenges”, implying that Zuma could again be prevented from speaking.
Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini — a key Zuma backer — said it was key for the federation to hold “urgent meetings” with the ANC.