Johannesburg - This week’s unpopular decision by the ANC’s national executive committee and the ANC Youth League’s national task team to reduce the league’s national conference to a consultative one is arguably the best thing that could have happened to the 70-year-old formation.
As hundreds of youth leaguers descended on the University of Johannesburg this week for the conference, it was not hard to see that chaos was on the horizon.
It was an unpopular decision, as it derailed the work of many who had been lobbying on the sidelines with one mission on their minds – to elect their preferred candidates as leaders.
They had invested money, time and effort. To many of them, the election was the most immediate and urgent priority.
But it was not to be. The feeling among many was that the “bully” – ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe – had undermined them.
Many have even forgotten that it is not unusual for the ANC leadership to take control when it foresees the potential of blood on the floor because of contests for leadership roles.
Yet many will remember that the likes of Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela had to instruct Thabo Mbeki and Chris Hani to stand down from contesting the position of deputy president at the ANC’s national conference in 1991.
Walter Sisulu was elected unopposed, avoiding what had the potential to be a bruising contest between two leaders who had significant support among opposing factions that backed both Mbeki and Hani.
Without seeming to equate the leadership contest that was bound to take place at the youth league conference this week to the enormity of the rivalry between Mbeki and Hani, the ANC appears to have avoided chaos in Soweto.
Pule Mabe, Magasela Mzobe and Ronald Lamola, the three candidates who were set to contest the league leadership, all enjoy significant support for various reasons.
Their supporters have an unhealthy rivalry that stems from the recent history of the league.
Lamola is perceived to have played a significant role in Mabe being booted out of the previous leadership under Julius Malema, while Lamola’s supporters in turn, because of the fraud and corruption charges he faces, view Mabe as corrupt.
Mzobe, on the other hand, stands accused by many of using his position as the task team co-ordinator to manipulate the audit processes of the league’s structures to favour his candidacy.
Of course, they all dispute the allegations against them, but the animosity had all the ingredients for a chaotic and violent elective conference that would achieve nothing much, except the entrenchment of these existing factions.
For a significant part of the opening of the conference, the league delegates from various structures could hardly even sing a revolutionary song together, such was the animosity.
Others deliberately sat down quietly while others sang slogans praising their preferred candidates. It took President Jacob Zuma to lead them into singing together.
At the centre of the discontent over the decision to defer elections lies ignorance and denial about the state of the organisation.
Zuma might have been correct in his observation that one of the most critical questions the league should answer is why many young people, some of them already members of the ANC, were not interested in joining the youth league.
While they have been in denial about the effect that the Economic Freedom Fighters has had on the youth league, it is certainly obvious to many both within and outside the organisation.
The uncomfortable truth they have to face is that the EFF has filled the space created by the league’s gradual decline towards oblivion.
Not only did the EFF manage to rally the electoral support of more than 1 million people in a space of eight months, it has also managed to own and champion (the ANC says it stole) the policies reintroduced into the public discourse by the youth league’s own conference resolutions.
The party, led by former leaders of the youth league in Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu, has also entered the student political space where the Progressive Youth Alliance, which consists of the SA Students Congress, the league, and the Young Communist League, is already limping.
University campus by campus, the alliance is no longer facing opposition only from the Democratic Alliance’s Students Organisation, but from the EFF as well.
The PYA itself is in tatters, and the ructions between various factions and the Congress of SA Students (Cosas) are at their peak.
Cosas president Collen Malatji could not even finish his speech at the conference after he was heckled after questioning the decision to change the status of the conference “overnight” and calling for the league’s autonomy to be respected.
At the opening of the conference, Sasco president Ntuthuko Makhombothi went into detail about how these organisations were even contesting against each other in SRC elections across university campuses.
They are slowly losing their grip and influence in student and youth politics.
In his own words, these contests were borne of the desire to access financial resources and privileges that come with student governance.
The same could be said about the leadership positions of the youth league itself, where those in control of its leadership have access to financial resources of the league and use these to further their political ambitions.
The historic role of the youth league, which has seen it significantly influencing the direction of its mother body at crucial times of the liberation struggle, has somehow been belittled by the desire to move up the ranks into senior positions of the ANC.
The young ones have been watching with awe at the likes of Fikile Mbalula, Malusi Gigaba, Zizi Kodwa, Mzwandile Masina and many others’ upward mobility in the party.
Not too long ago, the youth league was seen as a kingmaker in the elective politics of the ANC.
This has, to a certain extent, made it a contested terrain for the party’s national leadership, especially at times like these when the ANC’s succession battle is already taking shape.
While many may still be angry at the decision taken this week, it might just have saved the league from a second implosion.
But political analyst Professor Steven Friedman believes the ANC is simply delaying the inevitable by avoiding elections, arguing that the best way to solve the problems plaguing the league is to have an elected leadership that will be bestowed with that responsibility.
According to Friedman, the national task team had enough time to prepare for an elective conference, even though he is adamant it should never have been appointed in the first place.
“Malema himself was twice elected as president of the youth league in chaotic conferences, but they never did anything about it because they believed he was their man.
“After the expulsion, they should have gone to conference immediately, brought in the Independent Electoral Commission and elected new leadership instead of appointing a national task team that did not carry any mandate from the youth league itself.
“If you delay democratic processes you are digging a deeper hole,” warned Friedman.
He said he did not believe the current crop was interested in any policy discussions, but that this was a continuation of what happened under Malema.
“Malema and Floyd Shivambu did not have policies.
“Their nationalisation policy proposals were basically a get-rich-quick-scheme that was supported by their friends and supporters who elected them to get on the gravy train.
“The only way you will focus on policy discussions, and have a youth league that can politically influence the mother body is if you have an elected leadership that will be committed to that task.”
ANC Youth League timeline
1944– ANC Youth League is founded in Johannesburg, with Anton Lembede as its first president and Nelson Mandela as the secretary-general.
1948– The National Party in power and apartheid begins.
1949– The ANCYL convinces the mother body to adopt its militant Programme of Action calling for apartheid laws to be defied.
1950– Nelson Mandela becomes president of the ANCYL and for the next decade it is involved in opposing removals in Sophiatown, the Defiance Campaign and the Bantu Education Campaign.
1960– The ANC is banned under the Unlawful Organisation Act, as are other liberation movements. The ban has devastating consequences. Black Consciousness-aligned youth and student organisations emerge.
1990– The ANC and other liberation movements are unbanned and political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, are released from prison.
1991– The youth league is re-launched, with Peter Mokaba as its president, to be succeeded in 1994 by Mlungisi Johnson.
1996– Malusi Gigaba is elected league president, followed in 2004 by Fikile Mbalula.
2007– The Mbalula-led youth league plays a crucial role in Jacob Zuma’s election as ANC president.
2008– Julius Malema is elected youth league president.
Sunday Independent