THE African National Congress (ANC) was nowhere to be seen in Marikana, Rustenburg, on Tuesday as the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) flexed its muscles with a mass gathering at Wonderkop stadium — a stone’s throw from the two koppies where police shot dead 34 striking Lonmin mineworkers in August 2012.
With less than a week before the national elections on May 7, President Jacob Zuma was scheduled to conduct a door-to-door voter campaign in Ward 32 and Ward 26 in Wonderkop on Tuesday.
But the plan was changed overnight to avoid providing "anarchists with a platform to heighten their agenda", according to the ANC’s North West provincial chairman Supra Mahumapelo.
Mr Mahumapelo was referring to the riots in the area in which a shack that was used as the ANC local office was torched on Thursday, a few days before Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula was chased out of Freedom Park — another Amcu stronghold about 40 km from Marikana – where he was scheduled to address a rally hosted by Amcu’s rival, the National Union of Mineworkers.
Mr Mahumapelo said that at least 25 ANC branch leaders in the Marikana area have been displaced after the unrest.
Amcu members involved in the ongoing strike in the Rustenburg platinum belt have been linked to the Freedom Park incident.
However, Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa, in an interview on Tuesday after addressing more than 10,000 supporters at the Wonderkop stadium, said his union was not involved in matters involving service delivery.
In depth: Election 2014
News, views and analysis of South Africa's national and provincial elections on May 7 2014Mr Mathunjwa said it had become clear after 13 weeks of the strike — which has cost the mining industry more than R14bn and workers more than R6bn in wages — that Mr Zuma’s administration was not prepared to do anything to help resolve the standoff.
The workers on Tuesday said they would never surrender.
They are demanding a basic salary increase to R12,500 a month over four years.
Allowances, such as housing and holiday pay, would remain frozen.
The employers’ offer, which was rejected by Amcu members attending Tuesday’s gathering in Wonderkop, would have "resulted in cash remuneration" for entry-level underground workers reaching R12,500 over five years.
Mr Mathunjwa said he would take the workers’ mandate to the employer, but he added that it was "unfortunate" employers had started communicating directly with workers and undermining the union.
Business Day heard that locals in Marikana had vowed that Mr Zuma would never set foot in the area.
"We will manhandle him," an Amcu member told the newspaper.
Evidence has been led before the ongoing Marikana commission, which was set up in October 2012 to investigate the Marikana killings, that the striking workers were shot dead by the police to protect the ANC’s deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, who was then a director at Lonmin.
Members of Julius Malema’s party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, on Tuesday used the Amcu rally to campaign for votes. Stanley Komape, the EFF’s leader in the Bojanala region, which includes Rustenburg and is the biggest in terms of voter population in the North West, said the party "will offer the workers the R12,500 they demand" if it were to take over the government.
Mr Mahumapelo said the ANC cancelled Mr Zuma’s visit to Marikana because the party did not "want to draw unnecessary attention to these particular issues".
Mr Zuma spent the day speaking to local community leaders in Brits.
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