{"id":169217,"date":"2017-04-07T12:54:18","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T10:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=169217"},"modified":"2017-04-07T12:56:41","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T10:56:41","slug":"anti-zuma-officials-face-assassination-and-death-threats-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/169217\/anti-zuma-officials-face-assassination-and-death-threats-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Zuma officials faced assassination and death threats: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Government and ANC officials who have openly spoken out against president Jacob Zuma have faced assassination attempts and threatening messages, the Mail &amp; Guardian reports.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sowetanlive.co.za\/news\/2017\/04\/07\/lindiwe-sisulu-gets-death-threats-for-challenging-zuma---report\">paper&#8217;s front page story on Friday<\/a> <\/strong>(7 April), ANC NEC member and human settlements minister, Lindiwe Sisulu, has survived two assassination attempts, while ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe and chief whip Jackson Mthembu have both received death threats.<\/p>\n<p>Mthembu in particular is being accused of trying to stage a coup against Zuma by supporting opposition parties in a vote of no confidence against the president set to be held on 18 April.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to EWN this week, Mthembu said that the ANC&#8217;s parliamentary caucus was under immense pressure, being lobbied by opposition parties to stand with them in the vote.<\/p>\n<p>The chief whip also revealed that he and other MPs had been threatened by senior ANC leaders that if they did not vote against the motion, they would lose their jobs.<\/p>\n<p>Former president Kgalema Motlanthe said that the ANC had no basis to discipline ANC MPs that voted against the president, and that it was their prerogative as \u00a0public representatives.<\/p>\n<p>The revelations of lives being threatened comes just days after Mantashe was pushed in front of the nation to backtrack on dissenting comments he, deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa and treasurer general Zweli Mkhize made against Zuma in the wake of his most recent cabinet reshuffle.<\/p>\n<p>Mantashe said that the ANC has supported Zuma&#8217;s move, and has ordered MPs to stand against the motion of no confidence.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a title=\"ANC MPs threatened: \u2018support Zuma or you will be removed\u2019\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/169109\/anc-mps-threatened-support-zuma-or-you-will-be-removed\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">ANC MPs threatened: \u2018support Zuma or you will be removed\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Government and ANC officials who have openly spoken out against president Jacob Zuma have faced assassination attempts and threatening messages, the Mail &#038; Guardian reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":167757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26,4881],"class_list":["post-169217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-mail-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169217"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169223,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169217\/revisions\/169223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}