Johannesburg - The African National Congress Youth League was walking a thin line between rhetoric and sedition in threatening to make the Western Cape ungovernable, the Centre of Constitutional Rights (COC) said on Wednesday.
“Statements calling for any legitimately and democratically elected government within South Africa to be made 'ungovernable', are irreconcilable with constitutional democracy,” the COC said.
“And it should not be tolerated as acceptable political discourse in a democracy based on the rule of law.”
The COC, part of the FW de Klerk Foundation, said such statements should be condemned and denounced, as those involved undermined fundamental principles of constitutional democracy and were on the wrong side of the law.
Charges of intimidation were laid at a Cape Town police station on August 1 against the ANCYL and others by Western Cape Premier Helen Zille and Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille.
This was prompted by a threat to make Cape Town and the province ungovernable.
On July 27, the Dullah Omar region of the ANCYL delivered a memorandum to the office of the premier on behalf of itself, the ANC, the ANC Women's League, the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association and the Congress of Democratic Taxi Associations.
Zille said the memorandum contained a threat on the fifth page, which read: “We demand that the above-mentioned demands be positively responded to within seven working days. Failure to do so and the young people and the above-mentioned stakeholders will make this city and province ungovernable! Amandla!”
Zille's spokesperson Zak Mbhele said at the time the organisations were protesting about a range of issues which included education, the youth wage subsidy, transport and land. - Sapa