{"id":39321,"date":"2013-06-04T13:49:44","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T11:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=39321"},"modified":"2013-06-05T10:55:54","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T08:55:54","slug":"anc-denies-mtn-boycott-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/39321\/anc-denies-mtn-boycott-call\/","title":{"rendered":"ANC denies MTN boycott call"},"content":{"rendered":"

The African National Congress (ANC<\/a>) has not called on its members to boycott MTN<\/a>, the spokesperson for the party, Jackson Mthembu<\/a> has told MyBroadband.<\/p>\n

Mthembu said he could only speak for the ANC, however, and not the ANC Youth League, or the ANC Veterans League.<\/p>\n

This follows a strongly-worded statement issued today (4 June 2013) in which the Democratic Alliance (DA<\/a>) accused the African National Congress (ANC) of using \u201cbully-boy\u201d tactics against mobile network operator MTN due to an advertising campaign the DA is running on MTN recharge vouchers.<\/p>\n

A member of the DA in the office of the national spokesperson explained that they issued the statement due to an article in today\u2019s Sowetan entitled \u201cDA and ANC in airtime war\u201d on the Sowetan Live website, and \u201cDA goes mobile to reach voters\u201d in the Sowetan print edition.<\/p>\n

The article quoted ANC West Rand region chairman Mpho Nawa yesterday as saying that the ANC has to \u201cengage its members not to support MTN\u201d for supporting the DA.<\/p>\n

According to the DA, they entered into a standard advertising agreement with MTN for the campaign. \u201cIt should be pointed out that this form of advertising is not only used on MTN airtime vouchers, but across the top three South African cellular networks,\u201d the DA said.<\/p>\n

The campaign reportedly involves the DA logo being printed on MTN airtime voucher slips along with information on how the DA was involved in the liberation of South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ANC\u2019s call to boycott MTN is a clear sign that it is panicking about the DA\u2019s growing support,\u201d the DA statement said. \u201cNo amount of threats and intimidation will change the fact that more and more South Africans are choosing the DA over the ANC.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on MTN<\/h3>\n

Analysts question MTN leadership<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Phuthuma Nhleko rejoins MTN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN SA gets new CEO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The African National Congress (ANC) has not called on its members to boycott MTN, the spokesperson for the party, Jackson Mthembu told MyBroadband.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1875,5398,26,28,2931],"class_list":["post-39321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-anc","tag-boycott","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-mybroadband"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39321","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39321"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39386,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39321\/revisions\/39386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}