Chants of ‘Zuma’ as Gordhan booed at Kathrada Memorial in Durban

Former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was booed on numerous occasions during his speech at a memorial for Ahmed Kathrada in Durban on Sunday afternoon.

At one point he stopped speaking as chants of “Zuma! Zuma!” rang out from a group dressed in ANC t-shirts.

ANC KZN provincial chair Sihle Zikalala was forced to intervene and ask the disrupters to sit down.

“You must go out or you must be disciplined‚” Zikalala said.

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He said police were not needed “yet” when a small group of police officers wanted to move into the hall.

He asked journalists to ignore the group‚ as their presence was apparently egging the group on.

Gordhan started his address with a request for a moment of silence for Chris Hani and Ahmed Kathrada.

Hani was murdered on 10 April 1993‚ making tomorrow the 24th anniversary of his death.

“We know that there is no other organisation in South Africa that can deliver the promise of a non-racial‚ non-sexist democratic South Africa‚” Gordhan said.

• Zuma fired Gordhan because he was ‘disrespectful’President Jacob Zuma told ANC top brass on Tuesday that the main reason he fired Pravin Gordhan was because the former finance minister “disrespected” him and his cabinet ministers, was difficult to work with and treated people like children.

He spoke of the unity within the ANC that meant so much to stalwarts such as Kathrada in ensuring the ANC’s vision for the country was achieved.

“But that unity was not without principle. It was a principled unity‚” he said.

“Because you see comrades‚ two of us or any group of us can make a deal today. Somebody will pass on a nice bag of money‚ we all share the money and we say we now have unity because we won’t fight because we all have a bit of money. That’s not unity.

“Unity can’t be based on money‚ unity cannot be based on these brown bags that are moving out all over. That is not Kathrada’s ANC.

Shortly thereafter he was interrupted by the crowd.