"The ANC is playing with fire by interfering with media freedom," Adv. Anton Alberts, FF Plus Parliamentary Spokesperson on Communications said.

According to Alberts it will be the first step in the global isolation of South Africa and will take the country back to the sanction days of the 1980's. He furthermore said that this step would eventually derail the whole constitution and therefore set the ground for the revival of old conflicts. This warning comes on the day that the ANC entered into talks with the media on issues pertaining to the establishment of a state controlled media tribunal.

"The FF Plus supports media freedom in its totality and will fight against any attempts of the ANC to obtain state and other controls of the media. There are already instruments in place to hold the media accountable, such as courts and the ombudsman. The ANC should rather be giving attention to the making of access to courts more cost effective for ordinary civilians in stead of undermining the authority of existing instruments. The majority of people can not afford to defend court cases against media companies due to financial imbalances."

Alberts also referred to Hungary which recently appointed a state controlled media authority which threatens media freedom in the country. "Hungary is living proof that power corrupts and complete power corrupts completely. Similar to South Africa, the governing party in Hungary, the Fidesz party has a two-thirds majority and based on this unilaterally decided to create a media authority which has the power to restrict media freedom. The result of this, together with other unsavoury measures regarding banking taxes, is that the world community is starting to look at Hungary with scepticism and unfavourably. South Africa eventually expect the same fate if the media tribunal is to materialize due to the ANC's Parliamentary majority."

The FF Plus will closely monitor the developments and would even turn to the Constitutional Court if necessary in order to sink this misplaced idea of the ANC.