At 34.9 years, ‘youth’ candidate squeaks in
THE man tipped to succeed Julius Malema as ANC Youth League president is coy about his age.
Ask Collen Maine his birth date and he is likely to give the response he initially gave to the Sunday Times this week: “I want to keep it a secret. It’s my secret.”
He has good reason to hide it. Age has become a big political issue in the youth league, where membership is open only to those aged between 14 and 35.
Maine, the MEC for local government in North West, turns 35 on September 26 — just 20 days after he is expected to be elected to the league’s top post.
“Later this year I’ll be turning 35,” he confessed when Sunday Times pressed him. “But at the point of the congress, I’ll still be 34.”
The youth league, which collapsed after Malema’s expulsion from the ANC in 2012, is to hold its elective national conference next weekend.
Maine has become a firm favourite for the post of president after ANC MP Pule Mabe, a former Malema associate, fell out of the race when he turned 35 in March.
The MEC’s campaign has the backing of the three provincial premiers — known as “the premier league” — who recently helped Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini defeat Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga in the ANC Women’s League presidential race. The three are Maine’s boss in North West, Supra Mahumapelo, the Free State’s Ace Magashule and Mpuma- langa’s David Mabuza.
Maine this week denied that “the premier league” runs his campaign and that its ultimate goal is to use the youth and women’s leagues as campaign vehicles ahead of the ANC’s 2017 national conference, where President Jacob Zuma’s successor will be chosen.
“I have been approached by members of the ANC Youth League to avail myself. No premier or member of the premier league has approached me.
“Those three premiers are not members of the youth league. They have nothing to do with the business of the youth league,” Maine said.
He also denied being in Mahumapelo’s pocket but confirmed that the two of them were close. “[Mahumapelo] is actually my political mentor . . . He is currently my boss.
“But it does not mean he’ll have a say in terms of my views in the ANC Youth League.”
In a country with high levels of youth unemployment, Maine said he wanted education to be top of the league’s priorities if he became president. “We want free education at all levels. Education must be fashionable.”
The league’s politics, said Maine, would have to be different from the kind conducted under Malema. “The leadership of the youth league thought they could contest with the ANC . . . So we should take away that contest. But that does not suggest that we should not raise critical issues.”