Cape Town - Marius Fransman is getting no love from the ANC Women’s League.
Bathabile Dlamini said on Thursday that the ANCWL is not supporting the sidelined ANC Western Cape chairperson in his sexual harassment case.
“Actually I personally spoke to my comrade [Fransman] and told him we are not going to be able to support him,” Dlamini told News24.
Read: What Fransman says about Whatsapp messages leak
However, Dlamini said the league would also not be able to help Fransman’s alleged victim, Louisa Wynand, 21, because she insisted on dealing only with Dlamini.
“In the women’s league, we have structures and we don’t want to create a situation where only the president will be seen on such a matter, because it’s a very sensitive matter,” Dlamini said.
Read: Fransman accuser tells of ANC bursary ‘buy-off’
Dlamini said she was told Louisa was in witness protection, but if she was to see the young woman, she’d have to take at least five other officials along.
“We have to go as a collective,” she said.
Dlamini has declined to comment on the allegations against Fransman.
She said other political parties also had sexual harassment issues but nobody was pursuing these.
She said the ANCWL supports all female “victims of crime”.
The women’s league issued a statement on the same day as the allegations against Fransman surfaced – January 8 – saying it supported Louisa.
Nothing was issued when investigators in the North West dropped the charges against Fransman due to insufficient evidence.
However, the matter has been put under the police spotlight again as new evidence, in the form of flirty WhatsApp messages, allegedly from Fransman, to Louisa, has emerged.
The aspiring singer from Stellenbosch is accusing Fransman of sexual harassment while they travelled to the North West in January, for the ANC’s birthday rally in Rustenburg.
She claims Fransman forced her to share a double bed in a Kimberley hotel, held her in a tight grip, and fondled and touched her after attempting to do so earlier on several occasions during the road trip from Cape Town.
She just started working for Fransman as an events and public relations manager at his hospitality business.
Fransman has denied the claims.
Daily Voice