Johannesburg - The Christian Democratic Party is “not surprised” by the violence that broke out during a Democratic Alliance march in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
“We are extremely disappointed, but not surprised,” CDP leader Theunis Botha said in a statement.
“We do not wish to pick sides on who cast the first cucumber or stone, but we are concerned that race-based groupings aligned with the ANC will apparently stop at nothing to entrench that power base,” he said.
“We are apparently light years removed from normalised politics, and the people of this country deserve much better than a corrupt and mob-orientated elite using voters as political tools.”
Earlier on Tuesday, police used teargas and water cannons to disperse Cosatu (Congress of South African Trade Unions) members who stopped the DA from protesting outside its headquarters.
The DA wanted Cosatu to stop stonewalling a government youth wage subsidy which it believes will create thousands of new jobs for young people.
The march, led by DA leader Helen Zille, youth leader Makashule Gana, parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko and national spokesperson Mmusi Maimane, began peacefully.
The police kept the groups of DA and Cosatu members apart for an hour while they traded insults.
When rocks and pieces of cement were thrown into the crowd during Zille's speech and a DA member on the VIP truck was seriously injured, the DA retreated.
Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said the hostility displayed by the trade federation’s members during the march was justified.
“DA policies will create no new jobs and will lead to the impoverishment and enslavement of workers and an economic meltdown for South Africa,” he said in a statement.
“That is why workers are so hostile towards Helen Zille's party and want to express their justified anger, most especially when they are confronted on the street outside their federation's head office,” he said.
Craven said Cosatu condemned the violence, but said most of its members had “conducted themselves with exemplary discipline and restraint”.
Zille, who addressed marchers in Xhosa and in English, said the DA was marching in solidarity with unemployed South Africans.
A few blocks away at Cosatu House, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told a crowd that a youth wage subsidy would use workers' tax money to enrich company bosses and had to be opposed. - Sapa