Durban - The verbal sparring between the KwaZulu-Natal ANC Youth League and its arch-enemy, the Economic Freedom Fighters, is getting increasingly hostile.
The two have been verbally getting more vicious since the former landed a hefty first blow two weeks ago.
The ANC’s youth wing declared last month that EFF leader Julius Malema and his party were not welcome in KZN.
This was in response to the EFF’s alleged plotting of a “civil war”, according to the youth league, and rendering Parliament dysfunctional.
The EFF’s provincial chairman, Vukani Ndlovu, issued a stinging retaliation last week, vowing not to be “bullied” by the “not-so-young, ever-drunk retards”.
He ridiculed the youth league’s statement as “nauseating rubbish” and targeted President Jacob Zuma in his comments.
But the league’s deputy chairman, Kwazi Mshengu, in a letter to The Mercury late last week, said the league had no option “but to take the battle where it belongs – the ground” and “for young people to close space for any ‘red ant’ that may seek to rear its ugly head within our communities”.
He called on “our people to go from street to street in identifying these anarchists and mobilise the community to isolate them”.
He said every door, “even of taverns”, should be closed for “anything that looks like EFF”.
“Every corner of our townships must be cleansed of anything that smells of EFF. Our call is not for violence but for isolation,” he said.
Ndlovu said the youth league’s threat to march to the Durban High Court at the end of the month “is a serious threat against the independence of the judiciary”.
The march aimed to express the league’s displeasure about disruptive tactics employed by the EFF in the National Assembly, and what it perceived as a lack of protection afforded President Jacob Zuma and senior ANC figures in Parliament.
Ndlovu said the league was worried that his party was making inroads.
He then went for the jugular, labelling the youth league “idiots”.
“KZN is wrecked by youth unemployment, HIV/Aids, poverty and crime.
“Scores of working-age youth are neither acquiring education nor in the labour market, yet the youth of the ANC chooses to mobilise young people to march against one of the most sacrosanct institutions in the country.”
Political analyst Protas Madlala was not surprised, saying the developments were in the factions’ “upbringing”.
“You cannot interfere in ‘family matters’. It’s in their upbringing. They come from the same home. It’s a similar situation as that of the NFP and the IFP; they also had the same problems. They are hostile to each other.”
He added that being “hot-headed youngsters” was also a factor.
“They are trying to prove a point to their leaders in the mother body, and that they are loyal, they can be trusted,” he said.
He doubted party elders would want to get involved by restraining their factions.
The Mercury