Last week, The Sunday Independent ran a story in which it reported that ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe had faced a barrage of criticism at the youth league’s three-day lekgotla. Mantashe said our sources did not disclose what he said in response to the questions put to him. On Thursday, he spoke to Moffet Mofokeng to set the record straight.

Your comments that the ANC would support Zanu-PF to remain in power in Zimbabwe prompted the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) to call for you to be disciplined, too. They compared your statement to those league president Julius Malema made on Botswana.

Have you ever read what I said at the Zanu-PF conference? Once you read it – and I explained this to the youth league lekgotla – the word “support” you will only find in that speech in the opening paragraph where I bring a message of support and solidarity from the ANC to Zanu-PF. I don’t know what is it that is similar that makes people agitated in that statement. So, this comparison is a mischievous one.

Why do they make the comparison then?

They read it in the newspapers like you and everybody else. I regard it as people clutching at straws, trying to look for faults where none exists, and that is exactly what I told them at their lekgotla: “Comrades, you are clutching at straws.” You are looking for mistakes where they don’t exist. There is no comparison between the two speeches.

The relationship between the ANC and the youth league has deteriorated to the lowest point ever. Does that not worry the ANC?

I am not sure that is correct. There are two things that you should appreciate in an organisation. One of them is discipline. Discipline is rule-based. Anybody who breaks rules, processes, principles, policies of the organisation, that is what constitutes ill-discipline and ill-discipline is not disagreement. You must separate the two because if ill-discipline is categorised as disagreement you will come to the conclusion you come to. The relationship between the ANC and the ANCYL is a relationship of a mother body and its league. That league, from its inception in 1944, has defined itself as a body of opinion in the ANC, but once the relationship is elevated to a position of a counter-force to the ANC, then there is something wrong. I don’t think the issue is the relationship that has gone to its lowest ebb. My own interpretation is that all we need to correct is the content of that relationship. We go to the NEC (national executive committee) with particular views on particular matters, our views get dismissed and defeated, we don’t go out and (say): they have taken this decision but my view is… I go there, we take that decision, I articulate that decision as if I am the originator of a view because I am part of that decision-making process. Even if I felt very strongly about my view, once it is defeated, it is the end of my right to disagree.

From what they are saying, it appears that you differ fundamentally. The youth league claim that they are treated harshly because of their resolution at their congress, particularly the one calling for your removal as secretary-general and the president.

In their resolution, they have nothing on the president. The issue is once the NEC of the ANC says we are not opening nominations now prematurely… democratic centralism, as a principle, forces us to comply. If you take a decision about me, it does not give you a licence that you are going to be a free agent in the organisation. You can take the resolution, but you are not a free agent. You remain a cadre of the movement, you are subjected to the policy and decision of the movement. Whether you take a view on me, or the president, or anybody – you cannot use that as a licence to be a free agent. Once you begin to behave like a free agent, that falls within the category of ill-discipline. It has nothing to do with what you resolved, it has everything to do with how you behave.

Are you and the president fearful of competition before Mangaung, as is claimed by the youth league?

You wrote an article on Sunday that says the reception was hostile. I entered there, I am sure you could have picked the fear that I am engulfed in, that I was so frightened that I could sit down and could not move. I don’t know if you picked up the fright.

I picked up the tension.

I was not tense. I was not frightened. I did not regard myself as entering enemy terrain. I was relaxed as they were singing, it does not matter what they were singing, I joined in because I was not tense, I was not frightened.

What is your comment to the view that they have these problems ahead of the elective conference in Mangaung?

That is an imagination of one’s mind. I always deal with intellectuals and commentators. I normally say when they take a position, they do everything to make it a reality, even if it does not become a reality. I think if anybody talks of fear and fright and all those things I think people wanted to instil that fear even if that fear is not instilled. People talk of fear and once they talk about this fear it becomes reality in their minds, but it is not reality in practical life.

Is the political solution an option to this problem as proposed by the youth league?

What is the problem?

That this case be resolved through a political settlement.

I don’t want to discuss the disciplinary case with you. I thought we are discussing the lekgotla. If you talk about the disciplinary case, it is one terrain I don’t enter. It will be ill-discipline on my part to begin discussing that.

On (Thursday) morning, the ANCYL had a press conference and said they had been consistently asking for meetings with the leadership of the ANC, but there had not been a response to their request to discuss the congress resolutions. They said that if that meeting took place, the impasse could have been averted.

The reality of the matter is that the youth league is autonomous. They can hold press conferences. I cannot have an obligation to be responding to the youth league when they have press conferences. My responsibility is not to counter them all the time and I am not going to do it in this case either.

The national disciplinary committee made a finding against the leadership of the ANCYL and now they say there is no committee of the ANC that is going to remove their leadership. League officials will remain in office until 2014. How is the ANC going to enforce the disciplinary committee’s decision in the light of their comments?

When there are processes internal to the organisation and you call a press conference, I always call that an act of desperation and it is not correct for the organisation to behave the same way.

The disciplinary committee cannot enforce its rulings. That is the task of the ANC.

Leave the question of decisions of the disciplinary committee to the ANC. It’s not something that should be enforced in the media.

How is it done?

If we are communicating with the youth league through the media, I am sure the relationship would be much more chaotic than you imagine it.

In one of your reports you said there are people who are trying to divide the top six and you did not explain this.

Your contact did not give you the report this time around. I hope you will write that, you won’t edit it out. When the top six as officials meet and take decisions, it is foolhardy of any individual to go out there and begin to speak for it. When you do that publicly, you are trying to divide the top six and all we are saying is that it is not going to be determined by people who are tale-bearers who go and tell the media imagined stories.

Can you give specific examples of where individuals were trying to divide the top six?

You need to just pull out copies of your newspaper and you will find many of those examples.

What is wrong with Malema comparing Jacob Zuma to Thabo Mbeki?

I’m not discussing Malema’s case here with you.

Was Mathews Phosa’s statement in Limpopo one of those examples which you reprimanded him for?

In the statement, we talk to principles that must guide all of us. We must be careful about what we say because it is a silly season, people will try to drill holes in what we say. That is not a reprimand. We say as officials of the ANC must stick to policies of the ANC. We use that incident as learning for all of us. It is journalists who regard it as a reprimand.

Your name is mentioned consistently in the build-up to Mangaung and the succession debate. How do you feel?

What is the issue?

Does that not give you sleepless nights?

No. I am secretary-general. If I was not secretary-general, no one was going to mention my name.

Do you want a second term?

I do not think about terms in the ANC. I am elected for a term. My responsibility is to do the best I can do during the term.