The ceasefire between the warring factions in the ANC to get through the August 3 local government elections appears to have been shattered by Thursday's developments in the ongoing crisis at the SABC.
The makeshift peace over the party’s looming succession race next year buckled under pressure when the ANC’s NEC subcommittee on communications, backed by the party’s secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, threw down the gauntlet and summoned Communications Minister Faith Muthambi to explain the irregular practices and illegal editorial codes at the public broadcaster following the suspension of seven journalists for either defying instructions to censor themselves or speaking out about the treatment meted out to their colleagues.
Muthambi has until Monday to provide the subcommittee with a full explanation. She is also expected to account for the lack of leadership and the crises that have engulfed the broadcaster in the wake of bombshell accounts by senior black staff, including Vuyo Mvoko, Lukhanyo Calata and Thandeka Gqubule, of bullying and political interference.
These follow the dramatic resignation of acting group CEO Jimi Matthews, with his public admission that he was party to a policy censoring SABC journalists and news broadcasts and that he effectively perjured himself in an affidavit supporting controversial COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng in a key legal challenge to the COO himself, because he contradicted this account in a sworn document that is key to a legal challenge to the COO’s continued controversial tenure at the broadcaster despite previous court rulings that his presence is illegal and irrational.
On Thursday, the MK Military Veterans Association joined the ANC Youth League in support of Motsoeneng, in a clear sign of the battle lines being drawn against what the NEC subcommittee sees as the root cause of the current crisis.