The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) believes it is being attacked in the media by ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe.
In a statement on Friday, the ANCYL said it is ”concerned and very disturbed by the media statements and articulations” of Motlanthe carried in the Mail & Guardian and City Press.
”The deputy president continues without mandate to attack the ANC Youth League leadership in the media, despite our commitment that we will constantly engage with him and the ANC on the resolutions and positions of the Youth League,” said spokesperson Floyd Shavambu.
In the City Press last week, Motlanthe said recent attacks on the judiciary are being made by people ”predicated by ignorance” and that the utterances of individuals are being confused with party policy and positions.
He did not name the ANCYL, referring instead to recent statements by the Congress of South African Students (Cosas), which suggested that judges are drunks, and the South African Students Congress (Sasco), which said Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke was drunk when he made a statement interpreted by the league to be anti-ANC.
The M&G reported Motlanthe as saying that he had told the ANCYL it has to take responsibility for its statements and should not copy the 1976 generation, which faced police in a language protest that led to the deaths and exiles of young students.
ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte said the party is not going to comment but that the ANCYL has the right to raise their concerns at an ANC meeting on Monday.
”If there are problems, the Youth League has every right to do so, but we are not going to engage in this in the media,” she said.
The ANCYL was vocal in its support for ANC president Jacob Zuma when he was tried for and then acquitted of rape.
Its newly elected president, Julius Malema, later had to explain to the South African Human Rights Commission why he publicly stated that its members are ”prepared to die for Zuma, we are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma”.
Shavambu said Motlanthe is presented as a ”paragon of political correctness, who is beyond reproach”, even though it has told him about its concerns over his public statements.
The ANCYL said it was shocked that he ”went in public to defy the decision of the ANC national executive committee on his deployment to Cabinet”.
In the M&G, Motlanthe commented that he initially did not want to become an MP, a role he was given to facilitate the changing administration next year.
The ANCYL said he did not discuss his statements that the ANCYL is reckless within ANC structures, as he had promised in the media, ”which seem to be his hotline”.
The Youth League reiterated its view that the corruption case against Zuma is political. ”A political case in our understanding can only require a political solution, and not some highly questionable criminal justice system, which has persecuted our president for more than seven years.
”So going around affirming the independence of the criminal justice system on the case of the ANC president is worrisome,” the league said.
”We are waiting patiently to understand the intentions and agenda of the deputy president on attacking the Youth League in the media.” — Sapa