Johannesburg - Former ANC Youth League treasurer Pule Mabe says Julius Malema is posing a risk to the liberation by projecting himself as the “shop steward for soldiers”.
Mabe, Malema’s former confidant and close ally, was speaking at a rally in Limpopo on Sunday organised by President Jacob Zuma’s supporters.
“They are very dangerous because, left alone, they can drive a programme of counter-revolution, and that will reverse the gains of the national liberation project,” Mabe said about Malema, who addressed suspended soldiers last week.
The ANC had to emerge from Mangaung as a renewed and united organisation, he said. “President Zuma must lead us,” he added.
The ANC will open nominations for leadership next month. On Sunday Mabe urged ANC branches to elect Zuma at the conference.
Meanwhile, Zuma seems to have found support within the cabinet of Malema’s friend, Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale, ahead of the Mangaung conference in December.
The province is known to be hostile to his leadership. Mathale and Malema want Zuma removed from his position.
But on Sunday, the province’s MEC for sport, arts and culture, Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, broke ranks with Mathale’s corps and attended an ANC rally that openly called for Zuma’s re-election.
Her presence at the meeting, addressed by Mabe and Young Communist League leader Buti Manamela, seemed to endorse Zuma’s re-election bid.
Letsatsi-Duba becomes the second MEC in Mathale’s cabinet to back the incumbent. Education MEC Dickson Masemola was criticised by Malema and the Limpopo ANCYL last month for campaigning for Zuma. Masemola is Mathale’s ANC provincial deputy chairman.
Masemola’s challenge will be to convince branches in the region to vote for Zuma, especially as most of the regional leadership is aligned to the Mathale faction, which wants Zuma to be replaced by his deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe.
Dozens of Zuma supporters at the rally sang songs of praise for the ANC leader, while mocking Malema and Mathale.
The Star