Cape Town - The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) in the Western Cape plans to line the streets outside Parliament during the State of the Nation address on Wednesday, to support President Jacob Zuma.
At a media briefing in Cape Town on Tuesday, the youth league said it would not allow Parliament nor Zuma to be undermined during the address.
ANCYL provincial convenor Muhammad Khalid Sayed urged parliamentarians from all political parties to abide by parliamentary decorum and to respect the rules of the House.
Taking a swipe at the EFF, Sayed said the disruption of Parliament by “counter-revolutionary elements”, as witnessed last year, was an indication of “political immaturity”.
“Parliament is a central component of democracy, which Ashley Kriel and Solomon Mahlangu, Oliver Tambo and thousands of other brave men and women died fighting for,” he added.
ANCYL promised to be outside Parliament in their numbers to support the elected government.
Responding to the threats by EFF members entering Parliament naked, Sayed said the league was reminded of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes.
“Those who have been confused by populist rhetoric are now beginning to see the naked truth behind the façade, and to realise that it is only the ANCYL, through the ANC, that can attain economic freedom in our lifetime,” he said.
The provincial youth league called on young people to join it in the CBD tomorrow to express their support for the country’s democratically elected president as he outlines the government’s vision for this year.
Meanwhile, National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete and National Council of Provinces chairwoman Thandi Modise said they would apply parliamentary rules and conventions strictly during the address.
“We will strictly be following the rules and we will confine ourselves to the rules,” Modise told a media briefing by Parliament’s presiding officers on Tuesday ahead of the official opening of Parliament.
While there were no rules barring MPs from asking questions and raising points of order during the first joint sitting of Parliament for 2015, convention dictated that Zuma be allowed to deliver his speech uninterrupted, Modise said.
Her comments come in the wake of a threat by the EFF to disrupt Zuma’s speech by asking him questions about his Nkandla homestead. “The rules of Parliament are informed by what we understand to be convention, preceded by what is in the law and what is the constitution, so I think the president can rest easy,” Modise said.
Modise, Mbete and their deputies insisted they would rely on precedent.