Youth league thumbs nose at ANC over Botswana

Marianne Merten

The ANC Youth League says it will establish a Botswana “command team” to unite opposition parties there, and then unleashed a stinging attack on ANC national spokesman Jackson Mthembu.

Thumbing its nose at the ANC after the mother body said the youth league’s plan was effectively a call for regime change and had crossed the political line, the league was adamant yesterday that it had not violated any policy boundaries.

“The ANC Youth League does not believe that our position on Botswana is inconsistent with ANC policy outlook. If there is anything inconsistent with ANC policy directives, it is leaders of the ANC who associate with imperialist-controlled political parties like the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe and Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in Botswana.

“The ANC Youth League is concerned that strange ideological trends and political relations are being established for convenience,” ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu said.

The league’s national executive committee resolution on Botswana stood. This came as the youth league yesterday also slapped down Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba, who on Monday spoke out against the “reckless debate” on nationalisation.

“The ANCYL is relieved that at last Mr Gigaba, who never held a political view on any issue before, now has courage to speak about nationalisation of mines, although with the wrong approach, vigour and very wrong information,” it said, adding that as one of its former presidents, Gigaba had “a responsibility and obligation to at all times robustly engage with the league, and avoid throwing insults and undermining processes”.

The league yesterday expressed its disappointment in Mthembu and “emphatically” disagreed with his going public with his criticism of its Botswana resolution before exhausting internal channels.

Although The Star was told on Monday that the public rebuke issued by Mthembu had “the sanction of the top leadership” – which would include President Jacob Zuma and secretary-general Gwede Mantashe – Shivambu said the youth league believed otherwise.

“If the top officials wanted to raise an issue with us, they would call us to convene a meeting. We are existing in the same building,” Shivambu told The Star, adding that the ANC statement had been signed off by Mthembu, not Mantashe, who, if he wanted to, signed off on party statements.

Meanwhile, the ANCYL’s proposed Botswana command team has been welcomed by that country’s opposition, although the BDP has said it would raise the matter with the ANC, not in the media.

The ANC’s rebuke of the youth league was front-page news in at least two daily newspapers yesterday, and featured in radio news.

Ditiro Motlhabane, news editor at the Botswana Guardian and Midweek Sun, said the matter was still a hot topic of conversation.

“It’s an issue. People are talking about it ... on local radio stations and on Facebook,” he added.

Political commentators said the league was flexing its muscles on Botswana and nationalisation.

Independent political and policy analyst Somadoda Fikeni said it was not what was happening at face value, but the sub-text that mattered. “It is the machinations of (the ANC leadership) succession which have taken a life of their own,” he said, pointing out that the league had decided “to infiltrate the ANC and take over its ranks”.

Wits Graduate School of Public and Development Management Professor Susan Booysen said the league was asserting its power.

“They know they have power… The youth league is effective in mobilising delegates beyond its mandate (the youth) in the branches. I think they are having fun… because no one is putting them down,” Booysen added.

Political analyst Steven Friedman of the Centre for the Study of Democracy is on record as saying Malema enjoys the backing of senior elements in the ANC and business, for as long as he is seen as delivering ahead of the party’s 2012 elective conference.

Malema was not immune to disciplinary action, Friedman told Talk Radio 702 yesterday, but it would depend on his “powerful protectors”, while Fikeni said if Malema was disciplined now, he would at worst face “a rap on the knuckles”.

Malema told 702 he had nothing to hide with regard to the trust fund reported by City Press to be a channel for tender kickbacks from business people.

“I’ve declared to Sars and I’m not going to declare to Ferial (Haffajee, editor of City Press).”

He reiterated the call for nationalisation of mines and redistribution of land without compensation as a way to lift South Africa out of poverty. “These things belong to us,” he said.