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Malema outplayed under democratic rules
Julius Malema, the once seemingly peerless leader of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), has been totally outplayed under commendable democratic rules in the game of power politics, stretching over many months. On the one point that the ANCYL leadership’s appeal against the sentence conceded – an opportunity to plead in mitigation – the old guard is already piling up the count against them.
In fact, even the ANC’s National Disciplinary Committee for Appeals (NDCA) has been turned against them as pleading mitigation opens the door for arguments in aggravation of sentence.
Malema and his cohorts might come to rue the fact that they did not adhere to the dictum that “silence is golden” after the initial verdict by the ANC’s National Disciplinary Committee (NDC). The Malema leadership, after the initial guilty verdict and sentence, continued with confrontational statements and mocked the president of the party and of the country, Jacob Zuma in public by singing insulting songs about the “shower” man.
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Not only can this see Malema and friends ending up with even harsher sentences but the move by the NDCA is also politically astute in another respect. It seemingly extends Malema’s political life by apparently giving him a final opportunity to redeem himself but moreover, it ensures that the party cannot be accused of not being thoroughly democratic in its handling of the situation.
Clearing up a grey area
The NDCA also used the opportunity to clear up any grey area there might have been considering the extent of autonomy that constituent structures of the party might be thought to have from its mother organisation. It has now firmly established the principle that in the case of any dispute, the mother party rules supreme.
For Malema the game is all but over. Bar the shouting, the ANC has come out stronger from what looked like a major crisis and most importantly, the party succeeded in handling the crisis with composure and in the process, the democratic tradition within the organisation has probably been considerably strengthened.
There might have been some sloppiness about when and if Malema’s previous suspended sentence will take effect but that is insignificant within the party's bigger victories.
Piet Coetzer
Unfortunataely Malema would have a very good mouth pierce were his intentions constructive to service delivery and in defense of the defenseless.He is a very brave young man and he definetley would have made a good leader at that.He needed to talk to the matters of the youth,isssues around alcohol abuse and non proected sex and drugs all of that,instead he encouraged it by throwing alcohol free parrties where kids as young as 12 went to the stadium and drank themselves to oblivion.He says that he learnt from Peter Mokaba,i know Peter Mokaba personally.He despised alcoholo and all it stood for.It all turned up bad,elders also are to be blamed,why was he not reprimanded during the Mbeki regime but now their lapdog is turning againsts them they feel its too loud?WOW i guess its true what they say(in politics there are no permanet friends nor enemies)JUJU i wish you had kept quite and layed low,learned from the Mbeki reaction after you recalled him...KARMA-what comes around always goes round or the other way round.