As Julius Malema’s strategy to “expose” President Jacob Zuma’s “weaknesses” and “secrets” intensifies, the ANC has warned him that his missives have reached “intolerable levels of disrespect”.
An ANC Youth League official close to Malema told The Sunday Independent on Friday night that the tactics of the young leader’s faction was to “ensure that Zuma’s weaknesses… are exposed” by publicly “telling the nation” about his “secrets”.
This was soon after Malema told students at Wits University that under Zuma the youth league was “traumatised” and suppressed by the president’s “dictatorship”.
However, the ANC has warned Malema that attacks against Zuma “have been going on for some time and have reached intolerable levels of disrespect”.
In a blistering attack, Malema said the league was “radical” when it viciously attacked Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe but “ill-disciplined” when it criticised the president.
As the crowd cheered, Malema tore further into Zuma: “We have seen the youth being traumatised… being expelled from their own home. It is under Zuma we have seen a critical voice being suppressed. We have seen under Zuma democracy replaced by dictatorship.”
The ANC warned him that if he didn’t stop “he will be unwittingly dragging himself to a precipice where a point of return is impossible in the eyes of ANC members”.
At the same event at Wits on Friday, ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa encouraged young leaders to continue to be critical of their elders. “You can never become the lackeys of the older generation,” he said.
Meanwhile, Phosa has accused ANC communications official Keith Khoza of a smear campaign. Khoza had sent an opinion piece to The Sunday Independent under ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu’s name. The article stated that Phosa had contradicted Zuma when he said in an interview that high unemployment could lead to Arab Spring-type uprisings here.
However, the article suggested that Phosa’s comments were an example of a breakdown of discipline in the ruling party and portrayed the organisation as a “divided house”.
“As to what would inform a senior ANC leader in the highest decision-making body to contradict the president of the ANC about what these protests means for the ANC and for the country boggles the mind,” the article reads.
“The suggestion that the people have so lost hope in the ruling alliance that they would resort to the kind of insurrection that has seen rulers in North Africa go down is highly sensational and is not in keeping with the view of the ANC that these protests need to be understood as the very catalysts of the development agenda as well as the exercise and growth of our young democracy.”
After being contacted for comment, Phosa called Mthembu, who denied ever writing the piece. Khoza subsequently demanded that the article be pulled. Mthembu said: “I have said to Keith they can’t write an article in my name. They must own up to the article. We will deal with the matter.”
However, Phosa accused Khoza of being involved in a “fraudulent smear campaign” against him. Khoza confirmed to have “co-ordinated” the article and claimed he had not proof-read it. “It was a mistake on my part, which is why we want to withdraw the article.” - George Matlala