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Supporters simmer at Senzo axing

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Senzo Mchunu. Picture: Tebogo Letsie
Senzo Mchunu. Picture: Tebogo Letsie

About two hours ahead of new KwaZulu-Natal Premier Willies Mchunu’s election on Wednesday, workers were removing portraits of his predecessor, Senzo Mchunu, who resigned under pressure from the ANC on Monday.

It was a glaring image of the almost indecent haste to purge the legislature complex of images of the outgoing premier, before his replacement could even take the oath of office.

Senzo’s axing – the result of six months of pressure from the ANC Youth League and other backers of ANC provincial chairperson Sihle Zikalala – is likely to be followed by a large-scale Cabinet reshuffle.

While at least two portfolios ¬– public safety and transport – need to be filled after Willies’ promotion, the youth league wants as many as six of the MECs loyal to the former premier axed and replaced with its nominees.

Cooler heads in the ANC are arguing against what amounts to a purge of 40% of its membership (Zikalala won the leadership race by a 60-to-40 margin) ahead of crucial local government elections. But the league wants change immediately.

Those who backed Senzo for a second term as ANC chair slammed the reshuffle, with trade union Cosatu and the SA Communist Party (SACP) refuting the ANC’s assertions that they had been consulted, and endorsed the move as false.

SACP provincial secretary Themba Mthembu told City Press that the party was unhappy about the forced resignation, adding that the ANC’s claim that they were consulted was a ­“misrepresentation of facts, untrue and abusive”.

“The SACP, Cosatu and the SA National Civic Organisation were only subjected to what we may call a political management, rather than consultation on a decision already taken in an exhausted process,” he said.

Mthembu was unclear about the way forward for the SACP and whether the party, which had threatened not to back the ANC campaign before coming onside, would pull out.

There had also been debate about the SACP fielding a ­candidate or backing an independent – a situation which may resurface in the wake of Senzo’s removal.

The further alienation of Senzo’s supporters – through dumping more of their leaders ahead of the local government poll – may end up costing the ANC, whose membership has shrunk in the province, come elections on August 3.

Tensions are palpable at branch level in wards, with ­supporters of the former premier being sidelined in the ­candidate selection process. In Durban, some of Senzo’s prominent supporters are considering standing as independents, with the potential to split the ANC.

The problems do not end in the metro.

While Willies was being sworn in, ANC supporters at ­KwaDukuza, on the north coast, stoned cars and burnt tyres, demanding that the mayor, Ricardo Mthembu, be recalled.

Their protests are the latest in a recent wave sweeping the province, many of them in response to the candidate choices for elections which protesters claim the leadership has forced on branches.

And today, at Ngwelezane, near Richards Bay, the National Freedom Party is set to welcome 200 members who, it says, have left the ANC over Senzo’s removal.

Be it electioneering or wishful thinking, it may be a sign of things to come ahead of the August poll.

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