ANCYL march to Mail and Guardian offices
ROSEBANK – The Gauteng ANC Youth League marched to the Mail & Guardian offices in Rosebank to hand over memorandum demanding fair, objective, balanced and accurate reporting.
The march follows an editorial by the newspaper in which readers were advised to vote “tactically” to dilute ANC power ahead of the elections in May. This was to be achieved by “narrowing its [ANC] majority by swelling the opposition vote and even in some provinces, forcing the ANC to rule in coalition”.
About 200 members gathered in song and dance at the Hugh Wyndham Park in Dunkeld West, before proceeding to Rosebank where they handed over the memorandum to the newspapers’ editor, Angela Quintal outside the publication’s offices in Jan Smuts Avenue.
The league said it had noted, with deep concern, the manner in which the publication had, “become a willing propagandist for the opposition, all bent against the ANC,” said the memorandum. The paper was accused of endorsing opposition parties ahead of the 7 May elections.
Gauteng provincial Secretary of the Congress of South African Students, Khulekani Skosana, said the publication should accept the will of the majority. “We are going to demote your paper, we are going to make sure that our people don’t buy it, unless you start printing the truth and if you don’t know the truth, we are here to tell you, Jacob Zuma is the President,” he said to loud applause.
Convener of the South African Students Congress in Gauteng, Ali Komape said what the newspaper and their “white masters” were doing was an insult to democracy. “What we need to do, we must regulate [them] like in Russia, what these monkeys are writing… They must not write nonsense about our president.”
Meanwhile, Thabang Mahlomuza was among many Grade 12 pupils who had been bussed from as far as Mamelodi, facing the reality of an English examination the following day. He said he had never read the publication but was against “biased propaganda.” Mahlomuza added that he was ready to write the exam despite being at the march a day before.
Quintal said they had applied much thought into the editorial. She added that the newspaper had endorsed the ANC since 1994 and from 2009 decided to rather endorse the voter. She said 20 years into democracy, they had seen a need for “arrogance of power” to be denuded.
WATCH the video from the march below:
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