ANC takes news channel ANN7 to task over Zuma story

The ANC has rejected reports by television news channel ANN7 claiming that top party leaders "pushed" President Jacob Zuma to attend Cosatu’s May Day Rally.

Zuma was subjected to possibly his greatest humiliation yet when he was booed and prevented from making a speech by Cosatu members at the event in Bloemfontein.

The celebrations ended in chaos as persistent chanting, anti-Zuma singing and brawling between the president's supporters and opponents forced the organisers to call the whole thing off.

“Deployment of ANC leaders to the various May Day rallies held on Monday was a collective decision of the National Officials‚ not some fictitious structure called the Top 3‚” said party spokesman Zizi Kodwa in response to the ANN7 report.

• Cosatu says workers’ anger is behind May Day hecklingThe cancellation of speeches at Cosatu’s official May Day rally on Monday reflects the anger of workers towards the ANC-led government and factionalism within the alliance‚ the trade union federation said on Wednesday.

He said leaders were deployed to rallies with the knowledge that there could be heckling and disruptions.

"Regardless of the potential for discord, the leadership felt it necessary and correct that invitations as received from COSATU were honored and the ANC message calling for unity of the Alliance be delivered," he said in a statement.

“Such reportage is habitual and typical of ANN7 - devoid of truth‚ divisive and designed to create an illusion of some ‘ANC insider’ status for the channel‚” he said in a statement.

• ICYMI: Watch the moment Zuma told to ‘voetsek’ at Cosatu Workers’ Day eventPresident Jacob Zuma was subjected to possibly his greatest humiliation yet when he was booed and prevented from making a speech by Cosatu members at a Workers' Day event in Bloemfontein on Monday. 

"ANN7 however seems determined to manufacture false consensus, sharpening contradictions and deepening fissures in the ANC. The station effectively acts as a mouthpiece of the factional divisions that plague the African National Congress, consistently showing itself as being intent on driving wedges within the organization and pitting comrade against comrade," he added.

Zuma meanwhile brushed aside questions at the World Economic Forum (Africa) in Durban, about how it felt to be booed at Cosatu's Workers' Day celebrations in Mangaung on Monday, instead giving a ponderous lecture about democracy at work.

Zuma said: "Well, well, well. I have been hearing comments all over. The problem is that people have not understood how democracy works.

"You will agree with me that in the countries of dictators there is no protest, there is no booing. Protests, debates, booing is part of the culture of democracy. Unfortunately, people misunderstand that and misread it."

• We’ve reached rock bottom‚ Lindiwe Sisulu says of ANCWith apparent divisions and factions forming ahead of the December elective conference of the ANC‚ the ruling party has never been in a worse state‚ said national executive committee member Lindiwe Sisulu.