The surprise disbanding of the ANC Youth League’s KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee this week reflected the weakening of youth league leader Julius Malema and the unravelling of pacts that saw him re-elected earlier this year, ANC and league sources said this week.
Mthandeni Dlungwana, the league’s provincial chairman, and his executive committee were stripped of their powers by the youth league’s national working committee this week after publicly supporting the re-election of Jacob Zuma for a second term as party leader at the ANC’s national elective conference (NEC) in Mangaung next year. This was an apparent contravention of an ANC resolution not to make public comments in the matter.
According to an ANC provincial executive committee (PEC) member, the conflict also highlighted the “opportunistic tendencies” and “changing in the wind politics” of the youth league in KwaZulu-Natal and nationally.
Provincial ANC and youth league leaders expressed surprise this week that the youth league PEC, who were assumed to support Malema, had “out of the blue” expressed their support for Zuma.
“These guys were all friends a few months ago when Malema needed the support of the youth league in KwaZulu-Natal for re-election. Agreements were made, pacts were made, including ensuring Sindiso Maqaga got the national secretary general’s position.
“Now they’re at each other’s throats.
“It’s because everyone has one eye on Mangaung and people are starting to jostle for positions and power at regional general conferences of the ANC,” an ANC PEC member said.
Citing the unsuccessful attempt by youth league provincial deputy secretary Sboniso Duma to stand for the position of ANC Lower South Coast deputy regional secretary at a recent regional elective conference, another PEC member said that “there was an increasing realisation” that regional positions meant you could parley power with voting banks at Mangaung and beyond.
It is understood that many members of the ANC’s provincial leadership have very little respect for their youth league counterparts who are seen as “political lightweight” and “more concerned with tenders than party and government programmes”.
“This makes it easy to divide them so that we can unify the province for Mangaung,” said an ANC leader.
The youth league national executive committee is set to meet in Durban on Saturday in what is expected to be an explosive meeting where Dlungwana is likely to be hauled over the coals.
But the axed PEC members were defiant and said that they retained the support of the regions — following a mass meeting on Wednesday — and that the national working committee did not have the authority to strip them of power.