A handful of ANC delegates, mostly from KwaZulu-Natal, disrupted President Cyril Ramaphosa’s political report at the opening of the party’s national conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg on Friday.
Former ANC President Jacob Zuma arrived at the national elective conference on Friday just as party president Cyril Ramaphosa took to the podium.
Accompanied by his daughter, Duduzile Zuma, his entrance caused some disruptions as some KwaZulu-Natal delegates started chanting Wenzeni uZuma?
The delegates from KZN were relentless in voicing their dissatisfaction with Ramaphosa and kept shouting “Phala Phala” and “load shedding”.
Ramaphosa’s supporters then also started singing to counter the president’s opponents.
Outgoing national chairperson Gwede Mantashe called for calm but ended up telling delegates to “vote in who they want” as they made hand signals for “change”.
Delegates from Zuma’s region of Musa Dladla were particularly loud and disruptive.
Delegates from the Harry Gwala region, co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamii-Zuma’s home, and Josiah Gumede region participated in the disruption.
Appearing visibly unhappy, Ramaphosa acknowledged Zuma’s presence, along with that of former president Kgalema Motlanthe.
“I want to appeal to all of us to respect this meeting that has taken place 55 times in the life of our organisation. I want to appeal to everyone who wants space to raise their dissatisfaction to do so in an orderly manner,” Ramaphosa responded.
He added that the opening speech was not the time “to display this kind of disorderly behaviour, this does not look well for the ANC”.
Midway into his speech, Mantashe called security personnel to come to the front, in an effort to deal with the people interrupting Ramaphosa.
It took KZN chairperson Siboniso Duma, deputy chairperson Nomagugu Simelane and former eThekwini regional secretary Bheki Ntuli to calm them down.
The president was later able to deliver his speech with minor challenges.
Source: News24, Times Live, Eyewitness News, image from Twitter: @joy_zelda