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Zuma must fall freedom day march

The Zuma Must Fall Organisation held a peaceful march through the city of Cape Town on the 27th of April, 2016. The march had a large, diverse turnout with hundreds of people gathering to stand together and speak up against Zuma and corruption.

Several political parties joined in the crowd to show their support for the campaign. The march began in Keizersgracht Street and was led by a truck playing live music down Adderley street towards the gates of Parliament. Several guest speakers took to the stand and addressed the crowd, which included members of the UDM, COPE, EFF, DA and even some ANC supporters, along with several private and public organizations as well as several community church groups.

“South Africa is in a constitutional crisis and for the good of the poor and marginalized people of the country, Jacob Zuma must resign or be recalled by the ANC as president of the country.” said Richard Verryne as he opened speeches at the gates of Parliament. “This is not the South Africa we dreamed of or fought for!” he continued. Other guest speakers included Anglican Priest – Alan Smith, Political activist – Gloria Oliver, and speaker of the right to know campaign – Joyce Molemba. “Down with Zuma Down!” yelled Molemba as she started her speech, “in 1993 at a COPE congress meeting in Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela told us, 'when you are doing this to the ANC, you are not doing wrong! When you are not satisfied with what the ANC is doing, you must do it' well, today we are doing it!” she exclaimed to an excited crowd.

We spoke to Alan Smith in a private interview and asked him what his thought on the comments made that the previous march was too “white” and that it was not diverse enough. He responded, “we have reached out to everyone, however, we didn't have enough time to organize transport for people coming from the townships. Many people across all racial platforms support the campaign. There is a unity like we felt just before Apartheid ended and that is building as we speak. We need to build a new nation.”

We also spoke to a member of the EFF attending the march and asked what he thought about the statement. “I'm black , as you can see, and I am an EFF member. I think the event was not marketed well. People control the media and majority of them are still under ANC leadership, so they don't know about these kind of events” he stated and continued to say, “we need to work on getting the message out to people that don't have access to social media.” However, not everyone feels this way, Christelle Scheepers, one of the organizers of the event, said, “the Campaign has become larger with time and we have been receiving an increase in support.”

Though the protest on the 27th was seen as a success, the Zuma Must Fall committee plan on continuing the campaign and working on getting more support from rural areas. For more information follow @zumamustfallcpt on twitter.
 We've posted videos of the Cape Town march at www.youtube.com/user/chriswright22c
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