Call for unity of alliance’s leaders
Elective conference blamed for tensions among leadership
ONE OF two farmers accused of brutally killing a teenage boy in Coligny, outside Lichtenburg, intends to plead not guilty, the Coligny Magistrate’s Court heard yesterday. In an affidavit read out during an urgent bail application, Pieter Doorewaard, 26, said if he was kept in custody he would not be able provide for his grandmother.
Doorewaard and Phillip Schutte are accused of killing Matlhamola Jonas Mosweu, 17, on April 20 in Tlhabologang, near Coligny.
Doorewaard said Matlhamola had jumped from the bakkie he was driving. “Immediately after the incident, we rushed to the nearest police station and summoned (medical help),” he added. – ANA
THE ANC Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal has called for leaders of the tripartite alliance to find a solution to differences linked to the ANC national conference in December. The league, which belonges to the ANC’s biggest and influential province in the country, said lobbying for the conference was the reason President Jacob Zuma was booed when he tried to address a workers’ rally in Bloemfontein on Monday. Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini also left without addressing the workers after the rally was called off.
KZN youth league secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo said that Zuma was booed by people who had been bused in to “merely cause disruption”. “There must been dialogue among the tripartite alliance partners about this tendency of booing leaders because it is wrong. It is clear that there is tension linked to the national conference, and that tension should be resolved,” he said.
KZN ANC secretary Super Zuma said that the president’s reputation could not be damaged by “just a small group”.
“There were two groups there (at the main rally). One group even said that Zuma was elected by people, and only the people would recall Zuma.”
He said that the fact that the rally had to be called off without any tripartite alliance leader speaking was the sign that the group of hecklers was “standing against the tripartite alliance as a whole”.
Zuma commended former eThekwini mayor James Nxumalo for reprimanding a group of people who had attempted to disrupt Speaker Baleka Mbete. The hecklers are believed to be supporters of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is apparently in KZN to start his presidential campaign for the conference.
However, Zuma said Ramaphosa had been deployed to the province to campaign for by-elections in Nquthu, northern KZN. “As far as we understand, there was an official programme, which we were part of, for him to campaign in Nquthu, but we cannot speak about factional arrangements that he ended up attending.”
However, Zuma refused to name the factional arrangements.
Yesterday, Ramaphosa visited a gathering of the Nazareth Baptist Church, commonly known as Shembe church, in Empangeni.
He also went to Newcastle, northern KZN, to address ANC opponents of the provincial executive committee that is led by the pro- Zuma Sihle Zikalala.