The ANC has distanced itself from the protestors who disrupted Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s Gangster State book launch and vows to bring them to book.
On Tuesday evening, 9 April 2019, a group of protestors clad in African National Congress (ANC) t-shirts disrupted the book launch hosted by investigative journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh for his book titled Gangster State: Unravelling Ace Magashule’s Web Of Capture. The book details alleged corrupt deals undertaken by Ace Magashule during his tenure as a premier in the Free State.
The protestors stormed into the Exclusive Books store in Sandton City with placards reading “Hands off SG Ace” and began vandalising the store. The protestors continued the disruption and shouted at customers, telling them, “Go! Go! Why are you prosecuting Ace Magashule? They can’t call us [k-word] anymore; now they call us corrupt!”
The ANC has responded to this matter with conflicting messages. National spokesperson Dakota Legoete said the ANC strongly condemned the incident, adding that the individuals who staged the disruption acted in a personal capacity, and did not do so in the name of the party. The party’s parliamentary chief whip, Jackson Mthembu, concurred with Legoete and vowed that he would lobby for the protestors to face internal disciplinary proceedings.
“I will be mobilizing @MYANC ( NWC ) to urgently bring those involved in the disruption of the #GangsterState #AceMagashule book launch before a disciplinary committee. Those thugs have brought the ANC name into disrepute. They have trashed our hard [won] democracy,” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, the ANC Youth League in the Free State encouraged the incident and said it would lobby its own people to burn the books by Myburgh.
“We did not arrange for anyone, those people themselves, they went there. We are going to lobby our people. So, we are going to engage them and encourage them to burn all of those books because that book, in its character, is a satanist devilish book that seeks to divide this country – that wants to reverse the gains of this democracy. It’s launched now because the Stratcom wants to ensure that the ANC doesn’t win this election. They want to bring doubts amongst the African people here in South Africa,” it said.
Abenathi Gqomo
a.gqomo@politicalanalysis.co.za
