Botho Molosankwe, Michelle Pietersen and Gaye Davis
ANC Youth League president Julius Malema has taken his battle for political survival to the pulpit, telling congregants the league was being targeted because it demanded that all people share in the country’s economic wealth.
Malema, who faces a disciplinary hearing tomorrow for bringing the ANC into disrepute, told the congregation at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Pimville, Soweto, yesterday: “There is no crime we committed. The only crime (we committed was) when we had said, ‘let’s share’.
“The youth league is hated and attacked at all angles. Even those who are supposed to be our liberators are joining the chorus of those that don’t want to share.”
Malema, accompanied by ANCYL treasurer-general Pule Mabe, said the church had a responsibility to pray for leaders and the government and that the Holy Spirit must at all times guide them and teach them wrong and right.
“You can pretend to be untouchable and powerful, but when you are sleeping the Spirit will come to you and say: ‘You are a sell-out. Do what people expected you to do’.”
At church yesterday
, four pastors and the congregants prayed for Malema and Mabe.
With their hands on the bowed heads of the pair, as the congregants raised their hands in their direction, the pastors asked God to send his spirit to “fight” for Malema and Mabe.
With his sermon punctuated by the sounds of “Amen!” and “Yes!”, and while congregants milled about, Reverend Tsele Setai said: “God is the only one who can deliver us from the enemy surrounding us.”
Amid the prayers, Setai told God that standing before him was a people’s leader. He said the leader and two others were being called radicals by the “Babylonian” government. “We know that you are there with us in a fiery furnace; God you will be able to deliver us. Your son Malema is here.
“He says, ‘Lord, it’s not my brother. It’s not my father. It’s not my wife – it’s me standing in need of prayer’.
“Send your spirit on him, Lord, to fight for him so that when he meets those who need to meet him, they can only see your face.
“Daniel came out of the den and we invite you to also think of Mabe,” Setai said.
Mabe, who is a congregant at the church, said the invitation to become part of the youth service yesterday had been extended to Malema as well.
Earlier in his sermon, Setai said those who hated and plotted against others should know that “it was God who made that person in his image and not you”.
“Whether that person has been elected in a position, it is not you who put him there. When people point fingers at you, call you names, He is there for you,” he said to more shouts of “amen” and “yes sir”.
Youth league members were expected to start arriving in Joburg today in their numbers for what could be a huge show of force outside ANC headquarters on the eve of disciplinary proceedings against their leadership.
League spokeswoman Magdalene Moonsamy said this morning there was no intention to wreak havoc but that members – who are to be bused in from the provinces – would be gathering to show support for Malema and four other members of the league’s national executive who face charges.
“Ours is not an agenda that is there to create any kind of havoc,” Moonsamy told SAfm.
Provincial league structures held meetings with branches at the weekend to rally support for Malema, who faces charges including sowing divisions and bringing the ANC into disrepute.
He is set to appear tomorrow, while league spokesman Floyd Shivambu will come before the disciplinary committee on Wednesday. Fellow national executive members, deputy president Ronald Lamola, secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa, his deputy Kenetswe Mosenogi and treasurer Mabe will appear on Thursday.
Moonsamy would not provide an estimate of how many members were expected to gather at Luthuli House from today for a planned all-night vigil.
She said they would be waiting for the outcome of the hearings and wanted the ANC to “come and engage” with the league.
Members were “very concerned” about the charges and were “not pleased” with the ANC’s failure to engage on a political level with the league.
After top ANC officials decided to take action, the league wrote to the party asking for a meeting to “engage politically” on the charges against them.
By yesterday the ANC had yet to respond to the request, Moonsamy said.
It was now be up to league strategists to come up with a defence, since the ANC would probably not meet them before the hearings began tomorrow, she said.
Insisting the league had emerged from its national congress in June “with high levels of discipline”, she said any incidents of ill discipline that might occur in downtown Joburg would not be part of the league’s agenda and “will have absolutely no association” with the league.
Joburg metro police have said they will flood the area with officers to maintain control.
Two weeks ago Zuma and the ANC’s other top five officials laid charges against Malema and his right-hand man, Shivambu, and against the other executive members days later.
Malema is under a two-year caution and if he is again found guilty of sowing divisions his ANC membership could be suspended.
That would mean he would have to step down as league president, since that position depends on his ANC membership.
Provincial league leaders said yesterday that thousands of members would be bused to Luthuli House.
ANC spokesman Brian Sokutu appealed to league structures not to stage any sort of demonstration outside Luthuli House, saying this would be tantamount to undermining the party’s constitution.
League members are expected to come from the Western Cape, North West, Northern Cape, Free State, Eastern Cape and Zuma’s home province of Kwazulu-Natal.
The league’s Northern Cape chairman, Shadrac Tlhaole, said: “No one will sleep. We will sing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and revolutionary songs.
“We won’t sing Umshini wami (Zuma’s trademark song). We’ll rather sing Solomon (Mahlangu), because he was a unifier.
“There will be rituals, speaking to ancestors, political education, telling the youth about the history of the ANC,” Tlhaole added.