This follows several scandals surrounding his rule including reports of corruption and embezzlement. According to experts, the ANC’s urban vote had collapsed drastically with black middle and working classes turning their allegiance to the DA after being exhausted of ANC failing to deliver on promises.
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“We are going to Luthuli House as children of the ANC, if there are any bullets, we will take them”, Ndima said when speaking on Radio 702 on 5 August. But Lamola’s youth league is not the same as the ANC Youth League now headed by Collen Maine, the league’s president, who was adamant Luthuli House must be defended.
A small group of about 20 anti-Zuma protesters gathered nearby, while other ANC members loyal to the president pledged to defend the building.
“They need to defend their building, their organisation and their leadership”.
“We can’t account for them because some of them are not members of the ANC‚ so we know they are the opposition‚” ME said.
Members of the ANC’s Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association (MKMVA) reportedly assaulted a female journalist at the #OccupyLuthuliHouse protest and refused to allow the party’s secretary-general Gwede Mantashe to receive a memorandum of demands from disgruntled ANC protesters.
These members are calling for the resignation of President Jacob Zuma and his National Executive Committee (NEC).
The ANC, which led the struggle to end apartheid, has been rocked by poor recent local election results largely blamed on Zuma’s leadership and the country’s mounting economic woes.
“Don’t try to beat them. don’t give hooligans free airtime comrades”. Although Mantashe accepted their memorandum of demands, there’s a sting to the #OccupyLuthuliHouse movement because their mother organisation is refusing to treat them as legitimate and successfully thwarted any attempt at an occupation.
She said she interviewed MK vets about why they were acting so violently.
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“In 2012 during our conference in Bisho, President Jacob Zuma gave MKMVA the battle orders, and one of those orders was to protect the black, green and gold [the ANC] at all costs”, he is quoted as saying.
