ANC POSTPONES NEC MEETING AMID FEARS OF VIOLENCE IN KZN BY ZUMA SUPPORTERS

The party’s deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte announced the decision taken by ANC top officials in a statement.

FILE: ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte. Picture: Christa van der Walt/Eyewitness News

Tshidi Madia 

JOHANESBURG - The African National Congress (ANC) has postponed its national executive committee (NEC) meeting amid fears of violence in KwaZulu-Natal as former President Jacob Zuma’s supporters gather outside his home in order to defend him.

The party’s deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte announced the decision taken by ANC top officials in a statement on Friday afternoon.

She said they were mindful of the situation developing in KwaZulu-Natal; she herself raising their concerns over violence, injury and loss of life.

The NEC meeting was scheduled to take place over the next three days.

There has been rising tension in some quarters of Zuma’s home province since he was handed 15-month jail sentence by the Constitutional Court for being in contempt of court.

While the party’s highest decision-making body in between conferences already had pressing matters such as the growing COVID-19 pandemic, its embattled suspended secretary general Ace Magashule who took the ANC to court and violent branch general meetings, it now has a cloud in the form of Zuma’s looming jail sentence hovering over it.

In the statement by Duarte on Friday, she said officials understood the need to give clear and principled leadership to ensure the maintenance of the rule of law and to avoid violence, injury and loss of life

She said NEC members would be deployed to assist the provincial leaders this weekend.