Kennedy Mudzuli
PRETORIA: The hotel is located among embassy buildings in the flatland of suburban Arcadia, east of the city – and it was in the three-storey establishment that the plan to render Tshwane ungovernable was finalised.
The Cape Times’ sister paper, the Pretoria News, has revealed that hours after ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte named Thoko Didiza as Tshwane mayoral candidate at Luthuli House on Monday morning, at least 12 people met at the Court Classique Hotel to hatch the unrest plot.
The meeting was co-ordinated and chaired by a senior ANC official and attended by branch leaders as well as ward councillors and candidates for the August 3 elections.
Under the command of the official, whose identity is known to the Pretoria News, the faction that was unhappy with Didiza’s appointment came up with a four-point resolution. The plan was to turn the city into a battlefield if “Sputla” – mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa – was not back in for another stint.
Dubbed the “Court Classique Resolutions”, the group vowed to torch all government and city properties, close exits and entry points of all zones, burn the ANC regional office and disrupt all political activities. The city politicians, whose named have been withheld, coined the phrases #OneMayorOneChairperson and #NoSputlaNoVote.
These slogans were to vibrate through the townships of the capital as they burned in the past 24 hours in what will go down as one of the biggest single unrest incidents in post-apartheid South Africa.
By the time the meeting was adjourned, scores of people arrived and started the violence, overturning a patrolling Tshwane metro police car before going on a rampage in Arcadia and surrounds.
At that time, a text message was circulating publicising the “Court Classique Resolutions”.
Moments later, violence started flaring up in Mamelodi and Atteridgeville, spreading into other townships as the night progressed and into the morning.
The unrest has its roots in the branch general meetings that started towards the end of last year in all of the city’s 107 wards – long before a gathering to announce Didiza’s candidacy was disrupted at the Tshwane Events Centre on Sunday at which many were injured and one person shot dead.
When branch meetings’ season started in November and December last year, ANC members who preferred a leadership change were beaten up and prevented from attending.
Fingers were pointed at a gang known as Boko Haram, believed to be based in Mamelodi and under the command of the official who co-ordinated the Court Classique meeting. The gang was allegedly behind the assaults.
According to branch leaders, who cannot be named for fear of a backlash, this was done to manipulate support and votes in favour of Ramokgopa.
Similar allegations were made ahead of the ANC regional conference in 2014, when it was claimed that delegate lists were doctored.
“The signs were always there,” said another branch leader. “There was violence in all the branches that later nominated Ramokgopa. This to us was an indication that voting in those areas were rigged in favour of the regional chair.”
The motive behind the call for Ramokgopa to be reinstated and subsequent mobilisation for the cause, they alleged, was because the interests of people doing business with the city would be safeguarded if he was mayor. Others, including the senior official, meanwhile feared losing their plush jobs under Didiza, they claimed.
The SACP said the outbreak of violence was a continuation of a pattern in Tshwane and the doing of a regime that invested in “capturing the public purse” in the city.
“We are also reminded that even past regional congresses and the councillor selection and nomination process were allegedly riddled with serious acts of violence, use of money and manipulation of nomination processes and procedures,” the SACP said.