ANCYL threatens to stone MEC

ANCYL Limpopo chairman Rudzani Ludere encourages the youth to stone Dickson Masemola, ANC deputy chairman in the province 070812. Picture: Moloko Moloto

ANCYL Limpopo chairman Rudzani Ludere encourages the youth to stone Dickson Masemola, ANC deputy chairman in the province 070812. Picture: Moloko Moloto

Published Aug 8, 2012

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Polokwane - The ANC leadership contest is getting uglier ahead of the elective conference, with the ANC Youth League’s Limpopo branch threatening to stone provincial ANC deputy chairman Dickson Masemola.

Masemola, who is also education MEC, is believed to be a strong ally of President Jacob Zuma in the ANC provincial executive under the chairman, Premier Cassel Mathale.

Limpopo, the home province of axed ANCYL leader Julius Malema, is said to be against a second term for Zuma.

On Monday night, at a gathering attended by Malema in Polokwane, Rudzani Ludere, the ANCYL provincial chairman, urged the youth to unleash anarchy against Masemola. He said the youth must defy Masemola at public gatherings. “Even if he comes through government, you must just go there and disrupt and sing and even throw stones,” he said to loud applause from those who had packed the St Marco Hall.

Malema said at the meeting, attended by ANC provincial executives Clifford Motsepe and Frans Moswane, that Masemola was a sellout.

“Comrade Dickson Masemola has no platform in this province. If he wants to address the people, he must go and address them in KwaZulu-Natal, not here,” Ludere added.

He said Masemola was partly to blame for the delay in the delivery of textbooks in Limpopo schools.

“That English, which he is always speaking, is not doing anything for this government,” said Ludere.

At the same event, ANCYL secretary Jacob Lebogo said Masemola must step down as MEC.

“We are saying comrade Dickson Masemola must resign, (failing which) the premier must remove him,” said Lebogo.

Masemola and his spokesman, Pat Kgomo, could not be reached for comment.

On Sunday, Young Communist League leader Buti Manamela, a Zuma backer, called for the expulsion of ANC members who associated themselves with Malema.

Manamela said: “Any member of the Young Communist League, and I hope members of the ANC Youth League… who associate themselves with former members of our structures must regard their membership as immediately terminated.”

But on Monday night Malema urged his supporters to defy this call.

“The truth is they will not expel all of us, it’s practically impossible,” he said.

The Limpopo ANCYL was also planning a mass protest against the national administrators who run the province.

This followed disclosure last month by Charel de Beer, the chairman of the select committee on finance in the National Council of Provinces, that the intervention team was likely to remain in the province for the next three years. - The Star

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