MOFFET MOFOKENG and GEORGE MATLALA
The ANC Youth League is set to force the ANC to lift the lid on the raging leadership succession battle in the ruling party. The Sunday Independent has established that youth league president Julius Malema has indicated that the organisation will allow its members to discuss changes in the leadership of the mother body should they want to – although the ANC was only going to officially open the discussion next year.
Several members of the league’s National Executive Committee (NEC) suggested at a special gathering on Thursday night that its members should be allowed to discuss the matter at the league’s elective conference starting on Wednesday.
Malema, who was backed by his deputy Andile Lungisa, is said to have advised that the discussion should not be introduced by the leadership of the league, but be entertained should the members want to engage on it since the gathering would be the league’s highest decision-making body before the ANC elective conference next year.
The debate could see the league officially dumping Zuma and clashing with its mother body, given that the ruling party will only officially open the process to nominate ANC leaders next year.
Traditionally, however, the youth league has always been a kingmaker in the ruling party’s succession battles and has historically been the leading voice on the matter.
Many youth league NEC members said that they preferred Zuma’s deputy Kgalema Motlanthe to take over in the ANC next year, with Tokyo Sexwale as his deputy.
Political analysts have warned that Zuma had mastered the art of political survival and would be hard to depose.
Youth league spokesman Floyd Shivambu vehemently denied that the league discussed the succession matter and Zuma’s leadership.
“There was never a discussion about these things at the NEC. That meeting discussed the organisational report and the treasurer’s report,” he said.
“It is only sick people who are saying these things,” he added.
At Thursday night’s meeting, NEC members and provincial leaders discussed the country’s leadership, with most arguing that South Africa was “leaderless”.
NEC members, including Malema, said at the meeting that the country’s standing internationally had dropped.
This came as Malema heaped praise on former president Thabo Mbeki, saying he was the best leader South Africa had ever produced.
The ANCYL’s national executive, according to several of those in attendance, had sufficient appetite for change in leadership, which could also see a number of ANC NEC members being dropped because they had proved to be “weak”. The ANCYL executives said the mess that followed the list process (in terms of which ANC councillors were nominated and approved) is an example of a decline in leadership.
“If, for example, (ANC NEC member) Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (who is tasked with sorting out the mess) comes back and says ‘there is a problem in 500 municipalities’, which is likely to happen, are we going to run by-elections in all of them? Is this not chaos?” one NEC member said.
Zuma told communities up in arms ahead of elections against their own councillors that these councillors would be removed and by-elections would be held in councils where the ANC fielded people whose nominations were found to have run counter to party policies.
The upcoming conference, the NEC members said, was the league’s biggest gathering before the ANC policy and elective conferences, which are expected to take place respectively in June and December next year.
The leader noted that should the conference agree to Zuma’s removal, Malema and his officials, who would include his old henchman Pule Mabe, would pay Zuma a visit to inform him that he should not contest in 2012.
On the back of the assessment of the performance of Zuma, a further discussion on what should happen next ensued. Some felt that if they failed to remove Zuma, they must lobby to make the position of president ceremonial.
Most argued that perhaps the entire top six should go, or if the president remained, the ANC constitution should be amended with a view to taking most of his responsibilities to the secretary-general’s office which, in their view, would then be occupied by Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula.
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