A provincial structure of South Africa’s ruling party is instituting disciplinary measures against a member who has called for President Jacob Zuma to step down and has been receiving death threats from the African National Congress’s Youth League.
The public pronouncements by Makhosi Khoza, who is a member of parliament, “represented the worse form of arrogance,” the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal province, where she is from, said in an emailed statement Wednesday. “Her public stunt and participation in platforms intended to replace the societal leadership role of the ANC constitutes a blatant betrayal of the core values of the ANC.”
In April, Khoza criticized the party’s call to rally behind Zuma to preserve unity in the 105-year-old organization. “We are directed to maintain unity at all cost even if leads us to the ditch,” she wrote on her Facebook page. The Youth League in eThekwini circulated the post and she received death threats, media including News24 reported. Khoza has called on ANC lawmakers to vote to remove Zuma.
Support for the party has waned since Zuma, 75, became president in May 2009, a decline that’s been partly attributed to his implication in a succession of scandals, and several top party officials have warned that it risks losing its overall majority in 2019 elections. Zuma denies any wrongdoing.