JOHANNESBURG - Seven out of eight African National Congress regions in the Eastern Cape, the provincial ANC Women’s League, and Andile Lungisa’s own branch have all distanced themselves from attacks he levelled against ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa and provincial leaders on his first day out of jail on Tuesday.
Some have expressed disappointment in Lungisa’s remarks, while his own branch from Ward 2 in Nelson Mandela Bay warned that his views could bring the governing party into disrepute.Lungisa, who is out on early parole due to qualifying for special remissions, held a media briefing calling on Ramaphosa to stop the attacks on former President Jacob Zuma.
The former MMC and ANC councillor was found guilty of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to two years - this was for hitting a Democratic Alliance councillor with a glass jug during a sitting of council in 2016. Coordinator of the regional task team in Nelson Mandela Bay, Luyolo Nqakula, said they were going out of their way to condemn Lungisa’s comments because they were unwarranted.
“In the form of the president of the ANC and the provincial chairperson, it is understood as not only an attack on their personas, but it’s a direct attack on the organisation itself for a person to utter utterances that have mobilised against the elected leadership of the organisation,” Nqakula said.“That can never be correct and in essence, that is what we are going out of our way to condemn in the strongest possible terms,” he added.
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