The ANC Youth League is determined that its deputy president and provincial chairs should be included in provincial and national cabinets.
The governing party is currently holding its branch executive committee meetings to select provincial and national lists to submit to the Electoral Commission of South Africa for next year’s elections.
Speaking to the Mail & Guardian this week, youth league spokesperson Zama Khanyase said the body wants all its provincial chairpersons to be part of the ANC’s list of public representatives.
“When they get to form part of the list and they form part of the legislatures, we want them to be MECs,” she said.
Khanyase said this move has been implemented in the Northern Cape where Venus Blennies was appointed MEC for youth, women, disability, communication and e-government last year.
“We want that to be spread across provinces. All chairpersons of the youth league must be members of the provincial legislatures, and must be MECs. In the list that we have, the deputy president of the youth league [Phumzile Mgcina] is part of the list; we would want to see our deputy president become a minister.
“We have other NEC (national executive committee) members, other young people who are part of the list. We want to see them becoming ministers but also we want to see them becoming deputy ministers so they begin to learn,” she said.
Khanyase said the league understood that some within their leadership who are ready to take up positions in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s executive need to learn.
Lobbying for placement in the ANC’s provincial and national lists has intensified, with many of its MECs and ministers jostling to be included in branch nominations for representatives in the 2024 general elections. Posters of party representatives and those wishing to be selected as MPs have been circulating on social media.
Khanyase said although the league was hoping to get at least three positions in Ramaphosa’s cabinet should the ANC be reelected, it is determined that deputy ministries must be populated by its members.
“It becomes a learning curve for us, exposure and understanding how a ministry is run and understanding what are the responsibilities of a political head — how they work hand in hand with other officials of government who work under their political leadership.”
Khanyase said key ministries such as the department of education should have a youth league leader as its political head.
She said that the league is also determined that it should be part of boards of key state institutions.
The ANC’s guidelines only speak to sufficient youth representation in its list process without clarifying how many should be nominated.
The guidelines have emphasised that women should have at least 50% of provincial and national list representation, and two of the three premier candidates to be considered in each province.
The process to select candidates as MPs and MPLs will be run by the ANC’s electoral committee headed by former president Kgalema Motlanthe. It will deliver a national list of 200 ANC candidates for parliament, as well as a provincial to national ANC list of five to 50 candidates for parliament per province. The process will also deliver nine provincial legislature ANC lists with a minimum of 30 and maximum of 80 candidates.
In its three months in office, the league’s national leaders have already ruffled feathers in Ramaphosa’s cabinet, taking on Public Works Minister Pravin Gordhan and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi.
The league’s president, Collen Malatji, accused Gordhan of selling state-owned entities during an interview with The Citizen.
Gordhan retaliated, intimating that Malatji had vested interests intent on crippling ongoing reform of state-owned enterprises to the detriment of millions of South Africans. The two promised to iron out their differences are yet to meet, Khanyase admitted.
She said the league would continue to hold senior ANC members in the Ramaphosa cabinet accountable.
“What we say is what our members on the ground are saying. It would be us selling out if we try to change the messaging and sweeten it. If anything, I believe that in terms of what young people are saying on the ground, we are not even as close to reflecting the anger that they have and how impatient they have become with the government in terms of how quick they are responding to the needs that we have.”
Khanyase, who was appointed as youth league spokesperson shortly after its conference in July, said she believed the ANC has “great policies” but has failed to implement them.
“Part of the reason the youth league is raising [these issues and] displaying how impatient it has become is because we know that if these policies would be implemented then we would see the change we need to see,” she said, adding that the young lions are necessary in the ANC to agitate for change.