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Johannesburg — Cope will lay charges of inciting violence against the African National Congress Youth League’s Collen Maine over his call to MK veterans to take up arms to defend the President.

“Maine’s utterances may just spark the country into anarchy. His utterances are also in violation of section 16. 2.a & b of the 1996 Constitution,” said the political party’s spokesperson Dennis Bloem.

“Statements like those of Maine belong to the past and they must be left there.”

Meanwhile, Afriforum Youth said it was consulting with lawyers to decide whether to also lodge a complaint against him.

“We want to be sure that if we do it, everything will be right and reasonable,” its spokesperson Morne Mostert said.

On Saturday, ANCYL Chairperson Collen Maine made his call at a “Hands off Zuma” march in Durban.

“Comrades from Umkhonto we Sizwe, bring your guns. Now is the time to defend the revolution. We must do it. Generations that came before did it. They sacrificed their lives,” he told the approximately 4 000 peacefully gathered at the event.

The ANC Ethekwini Region organised the event, believing Zuma was being targeted.

The march comes in the wake of drama around outgoing Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s “state capture” report.

On Friday, Black First Land First (BFLF) protesters marched to the Public Protector’s office in Pretoria to defend the president.

They carried posters reading “hamba Madonsela” and “hands off Zuma” as they rushed up to the gates of the office complex.

Others held signs accusing Madonsela of being in cahoots with the wealthy Rupert family and acting in the interests of white monopoly capital.

Meanwhile, this week, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema was handed a summons by police indicating that he was being charged for contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act.

The two charges are for contravention of section 18 (2) (b) of the Riotous Assemblies Act. The summons alleges that on December 16 2014, during the party’s elective conference, Malema incited party members to commit a crime, by occupying any vacant land they came across.

A second summons indicated that he has been charged a second time for a similar transgression for making the same call in Newcastle on June 26.

It was widely reported in 2014 that Afriforum had laid charges against Malema for the land invasion speech at UFS.

In reacting to the summons, EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu called the move an “apartheid era tactic”.

He said the government was using a 1956 law to go after Malema. — Sapa