Johannesburg - ANC Youth League task team co-ordinator, Magasela Mzobe, says he is not running a campaign to become president of the league, but says he has been approached by members to stand for the position.
Along with Ronald Lamola and Pule Mabe, Mzobe might be elected the next president of the league at its next conference.
“I have been approached by structures of the organisation to stand for the position, but I told them to go back and discuss these issues.
“We will see when we get to conference what will happen. Being president of the youth league is not just a title that one wants to have and celebrate – it’s a responsibility.
“We still frown upon the foreign tendency that we see in American politics and the DA where people in the organisation can be known to be campaigning. In the ANC, when you do that, you run the risk of defocusing the organisation. You must give structures a chance to talk between themselves, instead of having people who want to stand for positions.”
Mzobe has been accused by some members of the league who are campaigning for his rivals of using his incumbency to manipulate processes to favour his possible election.
But he dismisses this, saying the work of the task team was mandated by the NEC.
“When that question is asked by you as a journalist, I take it as an honest question, because you want an answer, but if it’s asked by members of the ANC I find it very suspicious.
“All leaders of ANC structures, including in the NEC, PECs and RECs, do not stand down from their positions because they are preparing for congress and have been nominated.
“The secretary-general of the ANC, who is in charge of audits, did not have to stand down because he was nominated for re-election in Mangaung. What is upon us is to resist the temptation to manipulate the processes,” he said.
The task team that Mzobe leads has disbanded many structures of the league across the country, leading to unhappiness by many leaders of the league who were removed.
It was also believed to be carrying a mandate to disband all structures which still remained loyal to Julius Malema.
But he denies this, saying the Mangaung conference had decided after assessment that the league’s structures were in tatters.
“The ANC gave us a clear mandate that structures of the league were in tatters, and that at all levels, not only in its NEC, it had positioned itself as an opposition to the ANC.
“The constitution of the youth league had also been rendered irrelevant, and rules were being broken with impunity.
“We never had a mandate to get rid of people loyal to Julius. Anyway, that would have been wrong, because they are supposed to be loyal to the ANC, not individuals.
“That is why they were disbanded, not because they were loyal to somebody,” Mzobe said.
The slate on which Mzobe is expected to stand includes Mawethu Rune, who was once the president of Sasco (South African Students Congress) when Mzobe was secretary general. In youth league circles, there are murmurings that the appearance of the two on the same slate is an undeclared attempt of a “Sasco takeover” of the youth league.
“That is very mischievous. Some people forget that some of us were members of the youth league before we even joined Sasco. We joined Sasco when we got to tertiary institutions.
“But, more importantly, I met Mawethu Rune in the politics of the Congress Movement, not in a shebeen. We have always engaged on the basis of the activism we are doing within the Congress Movement. He cannot now be punished for that when people want him to lead the youth league,” Mzobe said.
He added that the youth league would remain a militant organisation, but said the previous leadership’s weakness was that they wanted the ANC to take resolutions on concepts, and not real programmes of action.
“The ANC has resolved on issues of mineral wealth and land, but they (previous leadership) did not want to accept them. That is why they left to go and start their own organisation.
“We continue to champion radical positions of the youth league, which they stole and tried to make their own. But they did not leave with resolutions – they left with anarchy,” Mzobe said. - Sunday Independent