Pretoria - Cellphone video footage showing ANC Youth League (ANCYL) leader Sinki Mahlangu hurl a volley of insults at executive mayor Solly Msimanga on Mandela Day have emerged - and are doing the rounds on social media.
Mahlangu is the ANCYL branch chairperson of Ward 9 in Winterveld.
In the footage, which the Pretoria News has seen, Mahlangu unleashes insults on the mayor in full view of metro police officers, city officials and preschool children.
The officers stood between the hostile group led by Mahlangu and Msimanga, who was surrounded by city officials and his bodyguards, during a visit to the Sinethemba preschool.
Msimanga had gone to the school to donate toys as part of his contribution to Mandela Day.
However, his visit was cut short by the rowdy ANC group, who told him he was not welcome in their ward.
The video, lasting two minutes and 33 seconds, did not capture how the apparent war of words between Mahlangu and Msimanga erupted.
In what was clearly a tense situation, Mahlangu can be heard angrily asking: “How can a mayor do this?”
The question he posed was accompanied by him gesturing at the mayor, showing him the middle finger while Msimanga momentarily disappears from the frame. Such a gesture symbolises a serious insult.
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The gesture was quickly followed by remarks and insults and more gestures aimed at demeaning the mayor.
“You are full of s***, mayor. Ga o meiyara wa ka, o meiyara wa m***** (You are not my mayor, you are a s*** mayor),” Mahlangu could be heard shouting.
He constantly showed his middle finger in the direction of where Msimanga was standing with city officials.
Mahlangu’s voice grew louder and louder as he started to call Msimanga by his private parts.
“How can a mayor do this? You are a s*** mayor, you don’t have discipline,” he shouted.
People at the scene just watched as Mahlangu continued to use obscene language, telling the mayor to go away.
“It is wrong. You can’t come to our ward without our permission,” he charged.
The mayor subsequently appeared on the video donning an orange overall. He was advised by his chief of staff, Marieta Aucamp, to leave because Mahlangu had apparently gone to mobilise more people to attack him.
“The ANC does not respect kids; it means they do not have kids,” the voice of a woman at the scene can be heard saying.
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Just after the incident, and as the mayor went to visit the elderly in Hammanskraal, as he was scheduled to do on his Mandela Day programme, he told the Pretoria News the branch chairperson had called him by his “private parts in front of elderly people and children”.
“When we went there, a chairperson of the ANC Youth League in that branch told us we were not welcome and he was going to organise people to remove us,” he said.
ANCYL regional secretary Ratshi Mashamba said their members in the area told him that Msimanga also swore at them.
He called Msimanga a “cry baby” and said the mayor whined every time about everything.
“He is not behaving like a leader. Next week he will be crying about something else,” Mashamba added. The youth league complained that Msimanga should have consulted the ward councillor before his visit.
Mashamba accused Msimanga of making empty promises to the people in the first quarter this year, saying he would build them RDP houses and give them jobs in the Expanded Public Works programme.