ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has fired early salvoes in his organisation’s campaign to get younger leaders – such as Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula – elected into the ANC’s leadership next year.
But he also heaped praise on President Jacob Zuma, telling him the league was his “protector”.
Without mentioning names, Malema told 5 000 delegates at the opening of the Youth League’s four-day congress in Midrand on Thursday that “the world is getting younger and South Africa is a young nation, so those who lead the ANC and government should be younger”.
Zuma, who spoke just after Malema, refused to be drawn into any succession debate, but praised the league for its work and for strengthening the ANC. He cautioned, however, that the league’s growth should not be at the cost of the ANC’s “character”.
He also remarked that membership of the league wasn’t forever, and that its leaders at some point had to “retire” and move into the ANC.
The congress started three hours late amid strict security. Accreditation glitches meant it took delegates a long time to arrive.
Delegates cheered and whistled as Mbalula entered the hall first, and led them in song, with Malema following a few minutes later to be greeted by a deafening reception.
Other former league leaders such as Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba and ANC MP Lulu Johnson were present, as well as ANC Women’s League president Angie Motshekga and Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, who is part of a team of ANC national executive committee members monitoring the proceedings.
Several high-profile business people, such as mining magnate Patrice Motsepe, sat in the audience.
Before reading his scripted speech, Malema gave Zuma the assurance that his position was not under attack.
However, he emphasised the important role the league has played in ANC leadership battles.
Zuma was “not a candidate” at the congress, and the league had supported him ahead of the ANC’s elective conference in 2007 “even when we didn’t know what Polokwane held for you”, Malema said.
Pointing to the league’s leadership seated on stage, he told Zuma: “These are your protectors. These are the people who delivered you in Polokwane and the people who will protect you as long as you are still a leader of the ANC.”
Earlier this month, Malema lavished praise on former president Thabo Mbeki’s leadership qualities, which had been interpreted as a sign that the league might not support Zuma’s possible bid for a second term.
Malema said Struggle stalwart Walter Sisulu had been elected ANC secretary-general aged 37, and had turned the party “into a mass fighting movement”.
He called on the ANC on the eve of its centenary in January next year to consider younger leaders, saying many younger ANC leaders and graduates of the league had already been appointed into “positions with serious responsibilities”.
Malema repeated an earlier attack on the leftist partners in the ruling alliance, the SACP and Cosatu, by saying the labour federation had “degenerated into a lobby group” more concerned with who became mayor, MEC, minister or ANC secretary-general than it was about the “struggle of the working class or the poor”.
In the absence of Cosatu representing workers properly, and for fear of “white parties” (meaning the DA) occupying that space, the youth league “should assume the role of the vanguard”, he said.
This included calling for the nationalisation of mines and the redistribution of land without compensation.
Malema deflected criticism about the league chasing away voters in last month’s local government elections, blaming the loss of votes on the ANC’s problems with its list processes and the preferences of white voters.
The league should work towards a 75 percent victory for the ANC in the 2014 general elections, he said, as this would provide the more than two-thirds majority in Parliament to amend the constitution and make changes to the law that would allow for land to be expropriated without compensation, for example.
Speaking after Malema, Zuma did not directly defend the party’s alliance partners, but instead appealed for “unity” in the ANC.
“Unity is the glue that keeps together the alliance with Cosatu and the SACP, and the broader democratic movement.”
Some delegates booed Malema’s possible challenger, Gauteng chairman Lebogang Maile. Malema had to call the delegates to order when they responded to his shouts of “Viva” with “Juju”, instead of echoing him – the traditional response.
That there were two camps was made clear by the singing, with Malema’s followers singing his praises and denouncing those who voted for Maile as “mad”. – Political Bureau