A stone struck KwaZulu-Natal legislature speaker Willies Mchunu on the head on Tuesday while he was on a fact-finding mission to the dissolved Abaqulusi municipality in Vryheid, the Natal Mercury website reported.
Hundreds of Inkatha Freedom Party supporters clad in party colours stormed the hall where a community meeting was to be held, removed chairs and threw stones at the delegation of MPs.
”When I was busy addressing people who had invited us, stones were thrown at us. One rebounded off the wall and hit me on the head,” the Natal Mercury on Wednesday quoted Mchunu as saying. He was not seriously hurt in the incident.
Mchunu and members of a fact-finding mission visited the town at the invitation of residents to discuss service provision. He was accompanied by provincial education minister Ina Cronje, who also came under a hail of stones.
Police, who were outnumbered by the rioters, tried in vain to stave off the crowd.
Tuesday’s meeting was held against the backdrop of a decision by local government minister Mike Mabuyakhulu and the KwaZulu-Natal cabinet to dissolve the IFP-controlled municipality — this after repeated failures by elected councillors to fulfil their duties, and a breakdown in service provision caused by infighting, the Natal Mercury reported.
This triggered an angry reaction from IFP supporters and leaders who said Mabuyakhulu’s decision was ”politically motivated”.
The African National Congress condemned the disruption of the meeting and alleged that the IFP supporters were being led by the party’s national chairperson, Zanele Magwaza. — Sapa