ANCYL in “training” this week

The tone of proceedings and the outcome of this week’s meeting of the ANC Youth League’s (ANCYL’s) national general council will be keenly followed by observers. It will prepare the stage for participation in next month’s senior ANC’s own NGC. League president Julius Malema and his fellow ANCYL hardliners would be seeking official adoption of two major ANCYL proposals ­– the nationalisation of mines and bringing down the average age of the senior ANC leadership.

Not only has Malema and/or his backers used highly questionable tactics in sidelining opponents of his continued leadership at recent provincial congresses and entrenching provincial leaders that support him, but he now apparently wants to take this fight to the next level ... challenging the senior ANC leadership.

Two of those targeted for replacement are ANC president Jacob Zuma and ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe.

It should not be forgotten that both were critical in public of some of Malema’s controversial actions during the past year and both played a decisive role in the holding of a disciplinary hearing which found Malema guilty of publicly undermining Zuma, gave him a suspended sentence, fined him, and ordered him to go for anger management counselling and political re-education.

Neither gentlemen will be speakers at the ANCYL NGC, but will be represented by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe who has a more neutral image and has not to date fallen foul of the youth league’s leadership.

Mantashe first fell foul of Malema when he failed to prevent Malema being heckled and shouted down at an SACP conference last year. Several more clashes followed.  At the same time Malema and company launched a premature campaign to have him replaced by ex-ANCYL president and current deputy police minister, Fikile Mbalula, as secretary-general at the next national conference in 2012.

Malema first crossed swords with Zuma when he embarrassed him by contradicting ANC and government policies on Zimbabwe, undermined him as president of both the ANC and the country. Malema is thought by many to have resented the punishment that followed, especially after his and the ANCYL’s role in getting Zuma elected as ANC president  in 2007.  Recently Malema’s attitude towards Zuma seems to have hardened, and just over a week ago he practically told Zuma in public that he was too old to be president.

In fact Malema and the faction that supports him in the ANCYL wants most of the parent ANC leadership, including Zuma, replaced with younger people. They are to be replaced by youth league “products” by 2017.

As a start to this campaign, it is thought Malema and his supporters will ask the NGC to endorse the campaign to have Mbalula elected as the next secretary-general of the ANC. The “coup” is supposed to be launched by pressing for progressively increasing the youth-component of the ANC leadership. Apart from Mbalula, another former ANCYL president, Malusi Gigaba, is already deputy home affairs minister.

The ANCYL also wants Vuyiswa Tulelo, its secretary who cannot serve another term in the youth league because of the age limit, to be appointed to the parent ANC’s national executive committee.

Greater autonomy

The ANCYL will also be seeking greater autonomy from the parent ANC, another throwback to the souring of the relationship between Zuma/Mantashe and Malema. Had the organisation had such autonomy, the “persecution” of Malema would perhaps not have been possible.

These moves by Malema and company may well cost them the loss of a few more friends in the senior ANC and may trigger a counter campaign. Many ANC leaders may feel threatened by it. Others may follow the route of ANC Chief Whip Mathole Motshekga who totally distanced himself and his wife, basic education minister Angie Motshekga, from their son’s strong criticism by Malema in April. Their son also indicated in the media that he would challenge Malema for the leadership position next year.

Ironically, those now wanting Mbalula to become ANC secretary-general are said to have campaigned for convicted former Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi to be elected to that position at the ANC’s national conference in 2007. Mbalula’s name has just been linked in testimony at the murder trial of the slain former mining boss Brett Kebble to both Kebble and Selebi. There were also many stories during Mbalula’s time as ANCYL president of the league having received funds from Kebble.

Another issue that could be driven further at the ANCYL NGC this week is the youth formation’s increasingly bitter clashes with the SA Communist Party (SACP). First Malema was challenged by SACP deputy secretary-general Jeremy Cronin for his take on nationalising the mines. This led to a venomous public response by Malema. This week the ANCYL responded strongly to a speech by Blade Nzimande in which he referred to the ANCYL as a haven for factional squabbles.

ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu said Nzimande's remarks confirmed earlier youth league suspicions that the SACP was behind the recent opposition in the ANCYL to Malema’s leadership.

Nationalisation

The NGC will also discuss and finalise the ANCYL’s proposed policy to radically nationalise South Africa’s mining industry.  It will then take that policy document to the parent ANC’s NGC next month where it will seek to have it adopted as official ANC policy, to be implemented by the government. The ANCYL also recently criticised the parent ANC’s own nationalisation proposals, saying these were not in line with its own views and left the door open to private ownership.

Contradicting the radicalism in the youth league’s discussion paper, the parent ANC’s discussion paper said the following, inter alia: “A specific issue on the table is nationalisation of the mines and of land. Debates on this subject are vexed by the fact that nationalisation takes many different forms. We need to ensure that proposals become more specific about (a) who would end up owning the assets, (b) who would manage them, and with what purpose, (c) what would be the costs to the fiscus and the economy, and (d) what would be the risks of failure as well as the benefits of success. The Zambian experience with nationalising the mines points to some of the risks. Zambia nationalised the copper mines, which supplied 90% of its exports, in the early 1970s. It ended up hiring back the multinational copper companies to manage them. As international copper prices fell, the companies enjoyed guaranteed management fees while the state had to bear the losses to the mines”.

All in all it appears the NGC will be used by Malema and company to force through some of their radical views and to settle old political scores. But it also carries the seed that could create further destructive factionalism within the ANC and the Alliance - factionalism that will also be exacerbated by the debate around curtailing the media.

Interestingly enough, the ANCYL has cordially invited all media to attend its NGC ... this at the very same time that Malema chased the media out of the ANCYL Eastern Province’s opening session that he was about to address shortly after being booed by ANCYL delegates from an opposing faction.

The NGC is being attended by more than 3,000 delegates, representing more than 2,600 audited branches of the ANC Youth League, 53 regions and nine provinces. Attending are one delegate per branch, two delegates per region, entire provincial executive committees and the members of National Executive Committee.

While much controversy is set to emerge from this NGC, the fighting was expected to be one-sided following the recent provincial purges. That means the stage is set for Malema and company to take their fight to the main prize ... the senior ANC’s NGC in September.