Eyewitness Sbongile Ntlonti said the gang, nine men and a woman, intimidated branch members at Rondebult, near Spruitview, The Star reported today.

This was because they believed these members wanted to nominate Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe as the ruling party’s new leader, instead of President Jacob Zuma.

The pro-Zuma group claimed they were from the ANC’s Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans’ Association.

ANC Gauteng spokesperson Nkenke Kekana confirmed the incident to The Star and said it would be investigated.

“We have also advised the members to lay charges against the people who threatened them either verbally or with weapons,” Kekana told the daily.

The ANC elects its new national leadership at Mangaung in the Free State in December.

Earlier this month, the Dispatch Online in the Eastern Cape reported that an ANC branch meeting, in the Gonubie and Beacon Bay areas, ended with chairs being thrown and two people being hospitalised.

At the time, ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said the party would take action against any of its members involved in violence.

“The ANC has never condoned violence. If any of its members are found to be using violence to put forward their own interests, they will have no home in the ANC,” Mthembu said.

Also this month, in Vereeniging, three ANC members were reportedly assaulted after a branch meeting was aborted when the quorum was not met, according to The New Age newspaper.

The Star reported that armed men, singing pro-Zuma songs, arrived at another branch meeting in Vosloorus in Ekurhuleni earlier this month.