The ANC Youth League appears to be losing its nerve in its showdown with its mother body over the suspension of league president Julius Malema, and it postponed an emergency meeting of its national executive committee that was to have been held yesterday.
But today Malema will attend church, in a gesture that seemingly taunts the ANC’s national disciplinary committee.
In the hours after the shock announcement by the committee that Malema had been suspended, all youth league national and provincial leaders confirmed that they would attend the special national executive committee (NEC) meeting in Joburg, which Malema was expected to address in defiance of the conditions of his suspension.
But yesterday, league spokesman Floyd Shivambu answered a question about what had transpired by saying: “What meeting? Who told you there was a meeting?”
Magdalene Moonsamy, a league spokeswoman, said simply: “There was no NEC today.” Shadrack Tlhoale, the league’s Northern Cape chairman, said the meeting had been postponed to Monday.
Malema has one card left to play.
Suspended with immediate effect from all positions he holds in the ANC and the youth league, barred from all meetings of the party, gagged from speaking about any matter relating to it and facing the prospect of his expulsion being upheld when he appears before the ANC’s national disciplinary committee of appeals (NDCA) next Thursday, it had seemed the maverick youth leader had run out of options. Analysts had already begun writing his political obituary.
But yesterday, the chairman of the ANC’s disciplinary committee, Derek Hanekom, handed Malema one more tenuous lifeline: he may ask the appeal committee to lift his temporary suspension.
And it seems Malema’s defence team will grasp any opportunity to stave off the seemingly inevitable.
A source close to the team told The Mercury that they would do as Hanekom suggested.
Regarding reports that the team had written to the disciplinary committee giving it an ultimatum to withdraw the suspension or face Malema in court, the source declined to comment, but said: “Even if we were to go to court, we would first have to go to the NDCA.”
Hanekom confirmed receipt of the letter from Malema’s lawyers and said the committee had replied before the 2pm deadline, according to the SA Press Association. He would not say what the reply had been.
According to the ANC’s constitution, when a provincial working committee or disciplinary committee imposes a temporary suspension on a member, it must “immediately forward a report of such suspension and the reasons for it to the NDCA and the NDCA may, if circumstances warrant it, at any stage set aside such suspension”.
Malema could approach the appeal committee to ask it to do so.
Today, however, he is going to pray. Shivambu said that apart from being Good Friday, today was also “the day upon which the national liberation movement, particularly the ANCYL, commemorates the life of Solomon Mahlangu, a fearless freedom fighter who was cowardly (sic) executed by the nonsensical apartheid regime on April 6, 1979” and Malema would go to church.
“In celebrating Easter Friday and commemorating the life of Solomon Mahlangu, Julius Malema will visit the Twelve Apostle Church in Christ in Butterworth, Eastern Cape,” the statement read.
It appeared carefully phrased to taunt the disciplinary committee by linking the event to the youth league, without crossing the line by calling it a league occasion, which Malema would be barred from attending. Shivambu said Malema would visit the church in his capacity as league president.
However, it was not clear whether he would speak in public.
Yesterday, at least three youth league provincial leaders pledged their support for Malema, in defiance of the party leadership, reports Sipho Khumalo.
Leaders of the league in the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and North West were defiant, saying they did not recognise and accept Malema’s suspension and would continue to back him.
Northern Cape league chairman Shadrac Tlhaole said: “This is the introduction of a new culture in the ANC... it is clear that some ANC leaders are hell-bent on destroying it and creating other factions.”
North West chairman Papiki Baboile said his province supported the leadership of the youth league.
In KZN, the leadership remains suspended, but the convener appointed by Malema, Vukani Ndlovu, declined to comment. - The Mercury