Pro and anti-Zuma protesters to face off outside Luthuli House

Supporters of President Jacob Zuma are set to square off with his detractors on Monday during a protest outside Luthuli House in Johannesburg.

Black First Land First is expected to lead a Hands Off Zuma demonstration outside the ANC headquarters in support of the embattled president. A group of ANC members have said they will also be there to voice their opposition to Zuma.

The protests coincide with growing pressure on the president to resign. Reports at the weekend said that the ANC leadership had met with Zuma to ask him to step down but no official word had emerged by Monday morning on the outcome of those discussions.

The MK Council of ANC veterans on Sunday condemned the planned protests.

"The Friday announcement of a 'Hands-off Jacob Zuma March' to Luthuli house on Monday‚ by a largely KZN-based conglomerate of diverse ethnic structures has been received with anxiety‚ concern and indignation within the movement and the public at large‚" the council said.

"Whereas these avowed 'law-abiding citizens' have all the right to publicly express their feelings and views‚ it is an extraordinary development that people who by their own definition‚ and in their own admission‚ are not organizationally members of the ANC‚ can in a free society seek to interfere and meddle in the business of another organization which they are not members of.

"It is also a matter of concern that some of these structures are not famed for respecting the law‚ as they confess."