President Cyril Ramaphosa had to endure protest at the start of the ANC elective conference at the Nasrec Expo Centre near Soweto on Friday, as delegates from KwaZulu-Natal broke out in song and heckled him.
Despite his appeals for calm, some delegates continued to bang the tables, demanding and vowing that he will not secure a second term as ANC president.
The delegates, who sang their war cry Wenzeni uZuma, RamaPhala Awuphendule (What has Zuma done, explain Ramaphosa), made it clear that they want Ramaphosa replaced by former health minister Zweli Mkhize, who is also contesting to be the president of the ANC.
“I would like to appeal to [you to] stop singing. I wish to appeal to all of us to respect this meeting,” Ramaphosa appealed to the crowd.
Amid the commotion, ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe called on security to be on standby for any eventuality. Prior to the start of the conference, a crowd from KwaZulu-Natal had defied instructions by Mantashe, who called on the leadership of the ANC in the province to calm them down.
KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Siboniso Duma intervened and reasoned with the delegates from his province, who were intent on disrupting Ramaphosa’s presentation of the ruling party’s political report.
The disruption followed calls by former president Jacob Zuma earlier in December for delegates to block the delivery of the report by Ramaphosa.
According to Xolani Dube, a KwaZulu-Natal-based political analyst, Zuma’s decision to lobby branches to revolt and not adopt any reports during the elective conference is self-serving and a reflection of a leader who has lost political strategy.
Dube told Sunday World at the time that Zuma should instead use his energy to challenge the neo-liberal policies that his party has embraced over the years.
“Zuma himself is a problem. Nothing will happen, the conference will go ahead as planned because any disruption or chaos will be a win for [President Cyril] Ramaphosa,” said Dube.
Early on Friday, hours before the start of the conference at Nasrec, Ramaphosa rejected Zuma’s move to launch a private prosecution against him.
According to the Jacob G Zuma Foundation, the former president is suing his successor in relation to his case against state prosecutor Billy Downer and Media 24 journalist Karyn Maughan, who he alleges unlawfully leaked his medical records.
The foundation said Ramaphosa was “an accessory after the fact in the crimes committed by among others advocate Downer, namely breaching the provisions of the NPA Act” in his corruption case.
However, the Presidency refuted the allegations, saying Zuma is abusing legal processes, and stating that the charges are “spurious and unfounded”.
In July, Ramaphosa was booed as he arrived at the party’s KwaZulu-Natal elective conference. He eventually managed to address the crowd at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban, despite the unwelcome reception.
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