Limpopo ANC Youth League leader Rudzani Ludere said on Monday he had apologised for encouraging the stoning of Education MEC Dickson Masemola.
Ludere said the ANC had instructed him to apologise publicly for his remarks.
Last week, Ludere urged members of the youth league to stone Masemola, who is also ANC deputy chairman in the province.
Speaking last week at an event organised by Friends of the Youth League, a body sympathetic to axed ANCYL president Julius Malema, Ludere said the youth should make it impossible for Masemola to address public gatherings.
He lashed Masemola for allegedly supporting a second term for Jacob Zuma as ANC leader.
“Even if [Masemola] comes through government, you must just go there and disrupt and sing, and even throw stones,” Ludere said.
Malema was the main speaker at the meeting attended by ANC provincial executive members Clifford Motsepe and Frans Moswane. The two leaders did not reprimand him.
But on Monday, Ludere said he had submitted himself to the discipline of the ANC.
“I have been convinced by the ANC that the statement was inflammatory and, therefore, I have apologised. But they did not say we must immediately like Masemola,” Ludere emphasised.
He said the league still maintained that Masemola should resign as MEC, or Premier Cassel Mathale must fire him.
Limpopo wants Zuma to be replaced by his deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, when the party holds its national elective conference in Mangaung in December.
The league is also campaigning against Zuma.
Ludere first publicly accused Masemola of betrayal at a rally attended by ANC national executive member member and Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula in Ga-Molepo village, outside Polokwane, in June.
But ANC provincial secretary Soviet Lekganyane took to the podium to defend Masemola.
The Sunday Independent reported at the weekend that ANCYL provincial secretary Jacob Lebogo’s car was stoned during a chaotic meeting last week.
Malema was set to address that meeting in the Sekhukhune region, but did not arrive. Masemola hails from Sekhukhune. - The Star