The ANC Youth League leadership appears to be coming apart at the seams, with league officials issuing contradictary statements that put them squarely in opposition to each other.
Late on Monday night league deputy president Ronald Lamola said a statement by league spokesman Magdalene Moonsamy – which attacked ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu and defended suspended youth league spokesman Floyd Shivambu – was the view of “the individual who published it” alone.
The tit-for-tat began with an article written for weekend newspapers by Shivambu, in which he accused the chairman of the ANC’s national disciplinary committee of appeals, Cyril Ramaphosa, of sacrificing principle on the altar of political ambition.
“The fact that a faction in the ANC has promised him (Ramaphosa) the position of deputy president, which he so dearly wanted in 1994, could be one of the reasons why he took such a stance,” Shivambu wrote in reference to Ramaphosa’s role in what the beligerant youth leader described as an “injustice against the leadership of the (league)”.
Shivambu, with fellow leaders Julius Malema and Sindiso Magaqa, is appearing before Ramaphosa’s committee to appeal against sentences handed down by the party’s national disciplinary committee in February.
Mthembu responded to Shivambu on Monday by saying the ANC was “appalled at the crude, uncouth, disrespectful and insulting attack” on Ramaphosa.
“This attack is both mischievous, disingenuous and smacks of ill-discipline. Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa is an outstanding leader of the ANC and has earned his standing due to his unfaltering commitment to the organisation and the objectives of a free and democratic South Africa,” he added.
Last night Moonsamy hit back, saying the league was concerned about the attack on Shivambu by the ANC.
“We believe that such an attack on a fellow comrade is in its very nature degenerating the values prescribed by the movement. The ANCYL will not attach any significance to the personal attacks on Cde Floyd Shivambu, because doing so will amount to undue dignifying of false, petty and irrelevant statements and accusations”, Moonsamy said.
Almost immediately Lamola issued a statement in which the league “denounces” and “disowns” Moonsamy’s statement, as well as distancing the league from the views of Shivambu.
“The article of Floyd Shivambu was written in his personal capacity and in no way represents the official position of the ANCYL,” Lamola said.
“We therefore put it categorically that we distance ourselves from the statement that responded to the ANC as it does not represent the official position of the ANCYL but the views of the individual who published it.”
He agreed with the ANC that Shivambu’s criticism of Ramaphosa’s “personal integrity and standing in society” was “unwarranted and did nothing to advance a comradely political debate”.
With three of the leaders – including Shivambu – now effectively suspended, and with the acting spokesman, Moonsamy, having been brutally contradicted by Lamola, it is no longer clear who speaks for the league. - Political Bureau