Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille on Tuesday visited the Mogoba informal settlement east of Johannesburg after two party members were assaulted, allegedly by a group claiming to be ANC members.

In a statement Zille said the visit followed the politically motivated attack in which Collen Mdluli and fellow activist Thokazani Nhleko were hit with axes and shovels on Monday.

In the attack, Mdluli's house was also burnt down leaving him, his wife and children homeless.

"The violent attack yesterday [Monday] on two DA activists by a gang of men known to be ANC members and supporters is a brutal reminder of the ruling party's intolerance of opposition."

She said on Sunday that Etwatwa branch chair, Mdluli, and branch secretary, Nhleko, had been accosted outside Mdluli's shack in the informal settlement near Daveyton.

"The group of men threatened to kill them. The incident was reported to the local SAPS, but they did not act."

She said the attack was one of many acts of intimidation recently perpetrated against DA activists working in ANC strongholds around the country.

"These attacks indicate that the ANC feels threatened by the DA's growing presence in areas traditionally supportive of the ruling party."

The party said the ANC was under increasing electoral pressure and that such violent intimidation -- if left unchecked -- could escalate.

An urgent meeting with President Kgalema Motlanthe and Safety and Security Minister Nathi Mthethwa had been requested.

The DA said it would propose a multi-party task team be established to make recommendations -- with input from the police and the Independent Electoral Commission -- to prevent political violence and intimidation inside and outside election periods.

Zille said the trouble in Etwatwa began in July after Mdluli opened the DA branch. Three ANC branch executive members and around 100 activists then confronted him at his home.

They told him that if he did not come out of his shack, they would break it down. When he stepped outside, they beat him and kicked him until the police arrived at the scene and pulled them away. Charges were laid, but no arrests had been made, said Zille.

In the last three months another five incidents of intimidation and violence had been reported.

"These incidents indicate the ANC's increasing intolerance of opposition and reflect the militarisation of its discourse.

"The violence and intimidation is fuelled, no doubt, by Jacob Zuma's war songs and the 'shoot to kill' rhetoric which the ANC leadership has failed to condemn," she said.

Zille said the DA would not stand by while its activists were threatened and attacked, and that if the government and the ANC believed in democracy and freedom of association, they would not either.

"It is time for the few voices of conscience that remain in the ANC to speak out against the culture of violence that now permeates the ruling party from top to bottom," she said.

ANC spokesman Brian Sokutu said as a "matter of principle" it was committed to multi-party democracy as well a political tolerance.

"We are expecting that in the run-up to the 2009 elections there will be a lot of incidents where people, purporting to be members of the ANC or any other political party, will be involved in incidents of this nature.

"If this is indeed true -- that something like this happened -- we are advising anyone to take the matter to the police as it is a criminal matter."

He said in the past four elections -- post 1994 -- the ANC had won with a huge majority and did not have to resort to violence, be it intimidation, abduction or the burning of any opposition party's flags or membership cards.

"We didn't do it then, we won't do it in the run-up to 2009 and we won't do it in the future," he said.