Yesterday, Western Cape Premier Zille and Cape Town mayor De Lille lodged a complaint with the police saying an explicit threat was made in a memorandum handed to them last week at a march by the ANC Youth League, the ANC Women's League and local taxi organisations.

Both alleged that the memorandum was in contravention of the Intimidation Act.

But the ANC was quick to rubbish Zille and De Lille's claim.

Senzeni Mphila, an ANC councillor in Cape Town, said the service-delivery protests and the ANC Youth League's march to the provincial legislature last week were unrelated.

He said violence committed by angry residents was being blamed on the ANC.

"They want to twist [things]; they want to say that it's us that incited that particular violence there. It's a lie, it's not true," said Mphila.

In her weekly newsletter last week, De Lille said the violence in the Philippi area, in which traffic lights were destroyed, was motivated by the ANC, which wanted to make the city and province ungovernable ahead of the 2014 general elections.

Yesterday she said that of particular concern was a "threat" contained in the memorandum, which stated that should a "positive response" not be received within a week, chaos would ensue.

"[If you fail] to do so, the young people and the above-mentioned stakeholders will make this city and province ungovernable."

De Lille said video recordings of a protest, obtained by the city council, showed that protesters were "carefully marshalled" by identifiable individuals.

She said the city council had asked the National Prosecuting Authority to review a decision not to prosecute ANC councillor Andile Lili in connection with a violent fracas in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, in which open toilets were destroyed.

Lili said yesterday that people were within their rights to protest about the open toilets.