The African National Congress (ANC) orchestrated Thursday’s taxi violence in Cape Town in a bid to disrupt a Democratic Alliance-led ”save democracy” march, according to city mayor Helen Zille.
”The last-minute taxi strike organised yesterday [Wednesday] was designed to keep [away] all of the thousands of our people who are coming here today [Thursday],” she told about 1 000 cheering supporters outside the provincial legislature.
”The ANC and their henchmen did everything they could to prevent this march happening today, blocking roads, burning tyres, preventing buses, preventing taxis from coming in here.
”We still found a way to come. This is how democracy will survive in South Africa.”
Her claim was denied by ANC provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha, who labelled the march a ”major failure”.
”The ANC rejects any insinuation that we are behind the possible disruption or that we were behind the taxi protest,” he said.
He said the first thing he knew about Thursday’s taxi problems was when an ANC staffer called him to say she would be late for work.
”She’s [Zille] getting paranoid,” he said. ”She’s chasing shadows.”
The ”save democracy” marchers, who included supporters of the other six parties that make up Cape Town’s multiparty government, were protesting against an ANC plan to change the way the city is governed, thereby stripping Zille of her executive powers.
The ANC is currently the opposition in the city, after failing to secure a majority in the local government polls in March.
Zille has labelled the move an undemocratic power grab, and says the city will take its fight to the Constitutional Court if necessary.
At the legislature, Zille handed a memorandum to a representative of provincial minister of local government and housing Richard Dyantyi, which called on him to immediately withdraw the formal notice he has issued under the Municipal Structures Act of his intention to scrap the current executive mayor system.
”We are standing up for democracy in Cape Town despite every attempt to prevent us from doing so,” Zille told the marchers, who carried posters, including one hand-lettered sign saying: ”We voted for Zille, not Dyantyi.”
”We say the ANC must learn to lose an election … we will safeguard democracy in South Africa,” she said.
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon and Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder — whose party is a member of the city coalition — also addressed the crowd.
A small group of ANC protesters joined the back of the crowd, carrying posters calling for the removal of the ”Godzille monster”.
One of them, ANC media official Lionel Adendorf, said he and two other protesters were pepper-sprayed by a man in a DA T-shirt, and had racial slurs hurled at them.
Earlier on Thursday, police fired rubber bullets to disperse taxi drivers who blockaded the N2 on the Cape Flats and tried to stage illegal marches to central Cape Town to protest what they claimed was harassment by law-enforcement officials.
One Golden Arrow bus was burned and two hijacked, and the company reported other buses were stoned.
Provincial community safety spokesperson Makhaya Manie said at mid-afternoon that calm had been restored in some areas, and that police were monitoring the situation in others.
He said there had been no official reports of injuries or damage to property, and no reports from police of arrests.
Provincial minister of community safety Leonard Ramatlakane said in a statement that taxi operators should not think the road belonged to them.
”We will not allow that taxi operators become a law to themselves and run our city and province ungovernable,” he said. — Sapa