City of Joburg meets lobby group over anti-Zuma march
A meeting between lobby group Section27 and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) was underway to agree on terms of a planned demonstration in Johannesburg calling for President Jacob Zuma’s resignation.
The demonstration, one of the many planned under the “ZumaMustFall” campaign, was scheduled to start at the iconic Nelson Mandela Bridge in the Johannesburg CBD on Wednesday.
Section27 executive director Mark Heywood said the JMPD had on Monday refused to grant permission to hold the demonstration as a special permission was needed for the march to go ahead. The organisation had considered taking the City of Joburg to court over the refusal to grant permission.
“The JMPD told us that we need a special permission in order to demonstrate on the bridge on the grounds that it is a heritage site. Today [Wednesday], we received a call from JMPD, requesting a meeting with us to discuss the regulations for the demonstration,” said Heywood.
“The meeting is encouraging, I hope there would not be a need to go to court.”
Marches and demonstrations have been planned in Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg on Wednesday, which is a public holiday.
The organisers of the “ZumaMustFall” movement said Zuma’s latest decision to abruptly remove former minister Nhlanhla Nene and replace him ANC backbencher David van Rooyen, only to remove Van Rooyen and re-appoint Cooperative Governance Minister Pravin Gordhan a few days later, was the one of the many reasons Zuma should resign.
The movement gained momentum on social media, similar to the students’ “FessMustFall” campaign that took off across the country in October.
The removal of Nene sent shockwaves across the country and saw the rand plunging to new lows as market jitters in the financial sector sank in. The rand made a slight recovery after Gordhan’s re-appointment on Sunday.
Gordhan was finance minister between 2009 and 2014. Zuma moved Van Rooyen to head the local government ministry. - ANA