Julius Malema may have started a “fresh life” with his re-election as ANC Youth League leader on Friday, but he still has the threat of immediate suspension hanging over him should he be found to put a foot wrong again.
ANC leaders, however, have admitted that the laying of fresh charges against Malema had been a tricky issue to date because he could have used the issue to court sympathy prior to the league’s congress this week.
Leaders have also been careful because Malema had used the issue of his charges to allege that some leaders in the ANC, like secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, whom the league is hoping to replace with Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula next year, were conspiring to unseat him.
Malema was found guilty of sowing divisions in the party last year after comparing the leadership of President Jacob Zuma unfavourably with that of former president Thabo Mbeki.
This also followed an outburst against a journalist, and contradicting the ANC’s stance on speaking out about the murder of former AWB leader Eugene Terre’Blanche.
Malema was told to attend anger-management and political-education classes, to pay R10 000 to a youth development agency, and that he could be suspended from the party if found guilty on similar charges again.
Although his anger-management course, organised by the University of Johannesburg, was ended after a disastrous first class, Malema has yet to pay the R10 000 he was fined for “sowing division” in the organisation.
The whole of the ANCYL’s national working committee attended the anger-management course after vowing earlier that they would bear Malema’s punishment with him because the incriminating things he had said were on the league’s behalf, but they were “chased away” for laughing throughout the class, a source who attended said.
ANC leaders involved in Malema’s disciplinary hearing refused to comment this week because they did not want to detract from the league’s congress or be accused of meddling in the league’s affairs.
But outgoing youth league secretary general Vuyiswa Tulelo confirmed that Malema still had to pay his fine to a youth agency specified by the ANC.
“They haven’t identified a charity yet, so he couldn’t pay,” she said.
She also said the meaning of political education classes stipulated by the ANC’s disciplinary committee had been vague, and Malema had used the national general councils of the league and of the ANC last year, as well as the league’s weekend congress, as a political school, she said.
Malema made a point of telling journalists last week that he was the league’s outgoing president, and that, if he were to be re-elected, he would be a “new president with a new mandate”.
But members of the ANC’s national executive committee told Independent Newspapers that Malema’s record and everything he had said in his previous term as league president still stood.
Malema has in the past two weeks been very careful about not insulting Zuma following an address to the league’s provincial general council in Limpopo earlier in the month, where he praised Mbeki as the “best” leader produced by the ANC.
This was interpreted as a signal that the league would shun Zuma ahead of the ANC’s elective congress in December next year.
In his address to the league’s congress on Thursday, Malema heaped effusive praise on Zuma and told him the league’s leaders were his “protectors” and that the league would “protect you as long as you are a leader of the ANC”. - Political Bureau