The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) on Monday again declared its loyalty to the party’s beleaguered deputy president, Jacob Zuma, and said it opposes ”the creation of two centres of power” in the ANC.
The league also threw cold water on a South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) proposal that President Thabo Mbeki serve a third term as head of state.
”South Africa is a constitutional state. We believe in it [the 1996 Constitution] and will defend it,” ANCYL president Fikile Mbalula said at a media conference on Monday.
Senior league functionaries also briefed the media on an extended ANCYL national executive committee (NEC) meeting over the weekend.
Mbalula wondered whether the proposal to change the country’s Constitution, which currently limits the president to two terms, was a Sanco position or the opinion of Sanco president Mlungisi Hlongwane. Mbalula said Sanco was to his knowledge divided on the issue.
Earlier, ANCYL secretary general Sihle Zikalala read a statement on behalf of the NEC, saying it remains firm in its support for Zuma.
”We remain firm in our resolve on the succession issues within the ANC. The NEC lekgotla [meeting] reaffirmed its position against the creation of two centres of power and will seek to advance this debate within the structures of the movement.”
The argument the ANCYL is promoting is that the ANC and the country must be headed by the same person — who should be Zuma. It opposes the idea that the leader of the governing party and the head of state could be different individuals.
Zikalala also said the NEC ”unanimously endorsed” a report from its national disciplinary committee to expel former ANCYL deputy president Reuben Mohlaloga. It accepted the unconditional apology of the Eastern Cape ANCYL chairperson and secretary who had earlier disagreed with the national office, saying that the president of the country need not be the president of the ANC.
Last year, some media reports suggested that Mohlaloga supported the Mbeki camp of the ANC, whereas the national office was supporting Zuma.
The ANCYL also called for the thorough investigation of the origin and purpose of a series of e-mails circulated last year that led to the suspension of three intelligence chiefs and the arrest of salesperson Muziwendoda Kunene. Kunene is accused of writing the messages that purported to implicate senior ANC members in a conspiracy against Zuma.
Refusing to accept the conventional view that the e-mails were a hoax, the NEC said their very existence represents a series of ”blatant counter-revolutionary activities which must be vanquished without mercy”.
”The ANC must do everything within each power to get to the bottom of this issue and move decisively in dealing with those forces behind this counter-revolutionary agenda,” Zikalala said.
Mbalula also expressed the league’s disappointment with Bafana Bafana’s poor performance in the African Nations Cup, where they have lost against Tunisia and Guinea — although he also said: ”We did not expect much from them … We are disappointed, they performed below par.”
He added in their defence that they may have been a team of minnows playing against giants.
Mbalula said South Africa now has to concentrate on building a team for the World Cup of 2010, to be hosted here. — Sapa