ANC task team has uphill battle to unite the youth
WITH next year’s general elections looming, the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League is expected to be a critical part of the party’s election machinery. This means the league’s newly appointed national task team will spearhead the ANC’s campaign among young people.
At least 20% of the voting population next year will be young people, and some of them first-time voters. A critical part of these voters will be the middle-class youth, who are not dependent on state social services and increasingly appear to be sympathetic to opposition messages.
Research has shown that nearly 75% of young people aged between 20 and 29 — most of whom are seen to be leading service delivery protests at local government level — did not vote in the 2011 municipal elections. The message is clear: they are unhappy with the performance of their political leaders.
This is the context the ANC would have been grappling with when it decided on the names of the 22member temporary leadership of the youth league, which was appointed on Wednesday.
At face value, the ANC, with the new appointments, has transformed the image of the youth league from one that was seen to be “rowdy” under expelled president Julius Malema to one that seems mature and diverse. The head of the youth league task team, Mzwandile Masina, is highly educated with a masters degree specialising in entrepreneurship. He is also a senior leader of the ANC in the Ekurhuleni region.
The team appears to be a mixture of young people from different cultural and racial backgrounds, including whites, Indians and coloureds. All nine provinces are geographically represented in the team. On this score, the ANC should be given credit for diversity. However, it is at the political level where the task team will meet its early challenges, which are likely to determine how members fare in their bid to unite young people behind the ANC banner.
One of the task team members, Shaka Sisulu, was rejected by league delegates during a provincial conference in Gauteng in 2010. He had been lobbied to become a member of the league’s provincial executive, with a view that a few leaders with middle-class stature would be crucial in the municipal elections.
But the branch delegates seemed to have had a different view.
Another member, Adelle Naidoo, has only led the ANC Youth League at branch level in Chatsworth in KwaZulu-Natal. She will now lead some people who have spent more than 15 years in the branches, regions, provincial and national structures of the league.
This immediately creates a crisis of legitimacy for the new team among the foot soldiers — those who will be expected to drive the election campaign on the ground. It is young people who mostly conduct a large part of the ANC’s door-to-door campaigns and participate energetically in election rallies.
Several provincial leaders of the league said yesterday the national task team was made up of “hardcore factionalists and political novices”.
“I do not think they are equipped to deal with the challenges we face,” said a Gauteng youth league leader. “In the structures of the ANC you rise through the ranks of the organisation. How are they going to command our respect?”
Another leader, from Mpumalanga, said the inclusion of two former provincial leaders of the league — who had resigned from the structure amid factional battles linked to the ANC leadership contest last year in Mangaung — was only likely to further the power struggles.
“I expect the task team to gun for their opponents. One of their first tasks will be to get rid of us.”
ANC Youth League Northern Cape chairman Shadrack Tlhaole said: “Our plea is that the national task team should not be divisive. The focus for all of us should be on winning elections.”
The first meeting, tomorrow, between the task team and the league’s provincial leaders will be revealing. However, the odds suggest — for now — that it will be a rocky road for the rookies.