Durban - The ANC Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal has conditionally supported a call by Mpumalanga province ANC chairman David Mabuza to have Julius Malema recruited back to his political home.
ANCYL KwaZulu-Natal secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo said if Malema’s application to rejoin the ANC is successful, he should not expect to be deployed to hold any leadership position “because he had violated the constitution of the ANC, and the sanction that was given to him was appropriate”.
Addressing delegates of the ANCYL special provincial general council in Mbombela, Mabuza was reported to have said if Malema was still in the ranks of the ANC, the ruling party could be in a better position than having him outside its ranks.
Mabuza said that although the ANC had different personalities it was stronger when “all of them are within the ANC. We are weaker when people leave the ANC.
“So, we must learn to coexist and tolerate one another. I am just sending a message that he must expect me.
“I am coming and not afraid of him, he knows, because it’s about our country; it’s about our beloved country,” said Mabuza.
However, the EFF had rudely shot down Mabuza’s call for Malema’s return to the ANC.
Sabelo said Malema was free to return home because the condition of his expulsion in 2012 was that his membership would only be reinstated after five years.
“Indeed we will welcome him if he can be recruited back because five years have passed, but we must remember also that being recruited back to the ANC does not mean that you are coming back to be a leader of the ANC,” Sabelo said.
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal was on a campaign to recruit former members who are now with various parties, and those who never joined the ANC before, he said.
For the ANC to regain its members would help it to regain its lost ground.
“If he were to be recruited back, it would collapse the EFF, which is built in the name of the ANCYL. The EFF is built with the policies of the ANCYL and its erstwhile leader stole the policies of the ANC.
“It (EFF) is built in the image of Julius Malema. If Julius Malema leaves the EFF, there is no EFF.
“So we believe that he would come back with his supporters who left with him to form the EFF,” Sabelo said.
EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said Mabuza was using Malema to gain a profile towards the national conference of the ANC.
“He (Malema) is leading an African revolutionary movement (EFF), which is very close to destabilising kleptocracy in the country and taking down the ANC,” said Ndlozi.
He said the ANC had never talked to the EFF about recruiting its members back.
Malema said recently that the EFF was ready to fold if the ANC was to implement radical economic transformation such as expropriation of land without compensation, and nationalising mines and banks.
Ndlozi said if the ANC could do things correctly, the EFF would close down.
“If the ANC expropriates land, nationalises banks and mines, and gives free education there is no problem, and there would not be a need for the EFF. But the ANC won’t because all the ANC cares about is corruption,” he said.