Pretoria - Julius Malema’s opening address to the African National Congress Youth League's three-day lekgotla will be used against him when his mitigation process with the ANC national disciplinary committee starts on Monday.
Malema will face the disciplinary committee in a bid to have his five-year suspension (for bringing the ANC into disrepute) reduced.
At a closed session of the League’s lekgotla on Sunday, Malema told delegates that his opening speech on Friday would “be presented as aggravation tomorrow”.
This was according to video footage seen by Sapa on Sunday.
In his opening address on Friday, Malema told delegates that any decision to fire him was the prerogative of the League and not the ANC. He also reiterated the League’s call for the nationalisation of mines, banks and monopolistic industries.
Last Saturday, the ANC’s disciplinary committee of appeals (NDCA) announced that attempts by Malema, league spokesperson Floyd Shivambu and four other ANCYL officials to have their suspensions overturned were dismissed. They were found guilty in November last year of bringing the ANC into disrepute and of sowing division in the party.
Malema was supposed to have a 14-day reprieve to argue for a lesser sentence.
However, on Sunday Malema said he had been informed by letter on Saturday that he, Shivambu and the League’s secretary general Sindiso Magaqa had to appear on Monday at 8am for the mitigation process. He said the three had each been given two hours to argue in mitigation of their sentence.
Malema told the delegates that it had been previously agreed with the disciplinary committee that they would have three days to argue in mitigation of their sentences.
“You can see they (the disciplinary committee) are doing the mitigation because they are forced by the NDCA to do the mitigation. They don’t want to do it,” he said.
He urged the delegates to begin a “massive campaign” to “unban” the League and its leadership.
“You can say whatever you want to. The Youth League is banned. It was banned the day we got charged. That is the day we got silenced,” Malema said.
He warned that anything he and Youth League members said would be used against them.
He also warned that it was possible that by this coming Thursday, “some of us may not be members of the ANC”.
Malema said he had told his grandmother that he expected to be back in Limpopo forever, because the proceedings of the disciplinary committee had “a predetermined outcome”.
“We are not going to come back suspended. We are going to come back expelled,” he said. - Sapa