South African Communist Party (SACP) deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin and other African National Congress (ANC) national executive committee (NEC) members connected to the communist party should undergo disciplinary action, the ANC Youth League Gauteng branch said on Sunday.
”We call upon the ANC leadership to subject the ANC NEC members, viz Gwede Mantashe, Blade Nzimande, Jeremy Cronin, to be herald [sic] before the disciplinary action in light of their collective behaviour at their special conference,” said ANCYL provincial secretary Thabo Kupa in a statement.
”This call is due to the conduct and behaviour which is foreign to the alliance.”
Kupa’s comments were contained in a statement released on Sunday and which recorded the comments of various provincial branches of the ANCYL.
On Sunday, City Press reported that ANCYL president Julius Malema had sent a threatening SMS to Cronin following the former’s embarrassing appearance at the SACP conference.
”If you thought you have taught me a lesson, wait until you see what is coming your direction,” Malema reportedly SMSed Cronin after he was booed at the SACP’s conference in Polokwane.
Last month, Cronin and Malema exchanged combative words. In the SACP newsletter, Cronin said that those who called for nationalisation of mines, such as Malema, did not understand the economics of the issue.
Malema fired back, accusing Cronin of being a ”white messiah”.
On Sunday, Kupa said unity was the alliance’s ”rock”.
”This conduct threatens the unity of the alliance.”
He said the league’s branch believed the act of booing was ”by design”.
Kupa said the ANC must not allow alliance partners to address the party’s 98th anniversary in Kimberly in 2010. ”This will remind and put the alliance partners in their rightful place in as far as the work and unity of the alliance is concerned.”
On Sunday, Cronin told South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news that while he had received some threatening SMSs, he did not believe Malema had been the sender.
”I can’t actually believe they are from Julius Malema, but they are signed ‘Julius Malema’. I find it hard to believe that he would send [them].”
Meanwhile, the ANCYL’s Western Cape branch secretary, Tandi Mahambehlala, said in the statement that the booing invoked ”disgust and disappointment”.
”We call on the SACP to stop convening forums posing as constitutional meetings only to find out they are meant to insult the leadership of the ANC.”
The Northern Cape’s provincial secretary, Dikgang Stock, said the booing was ”calculated and premeditated anti-ANC behaviour”.
”The manner in which they attempted to humiliate our hard-working ANCYL president, Comrade Julius Malema, and member of the ANC NEC Comrade Billy Masetlha leaves much to be desired and it is a clear indication of how the SACP views our relation to them as the ANCYL and the ANC.”
Stock said ”…We will not keep quite [sic] in the spirit of protecting the tripartite alliance whilst some hooligans and fakes who masquerade as leaders mobilise stupid delegates to insult our ANC NEC and ANCYL members.”
He also said that the branch took exception to SACP chairperson Gwede Mantashe’s ”unbecoming conduct” in allegedly not calling the hecklers to account.
”We humbly wish to warn these rented hooligans and dogs and their masters that we will defend the ANCYL leadership and ANC NEC with our lives, even if it makes kicking this unbecoming behaviour out of them, we will do that”.
He added: ”We are serious that anyone who doesn’t support nationalisation [of mines] is not fit to lead the ANC. We will meet in 2012.”
The Free State’s ANCYL chairperson, Thabo Meeko, said the incident was not accidental.
”In our view the unfortunate conduct is not an accident neither isolated, but part of a series of consistent and continued reactionary conduct expressed in an attempt to opportunistically redefine the character of the alliance as a tit-for-tat type of a relationship.”
Mpumalanga’s ANCYL branch secretary, Isaac Mahlangu, said the SACP at branch level was led by ”renegades”.
”We have never heard anything communist in the branches and districts of the SACP except demands for deployment on alliance basis and attacks to the ANCYL president.
”There are elements within the SACP who, like Cope [Congress of the People], want the SACP to contest the elections. Any person who wants to contest the elections against the ANC is the enemy of the ANC, in the same manner the DA and Cope is.” — Sapa