ANC Youth League top brass meet at weekend to discuss Malema’s expulsion
THE ANC Youth League (ANCYL) national executive committee (NEC) will meet at the weekend to discuss leader Julius Malema’s expulsion from the party.
“(The NEC) will convene on Sunday to seek guidance from the leadership ... on the way forward,” league spokesman Floyd Shivambu said in a statement yesterday.
Shivambu said the league would hold a news briefing on Monday, and Malema would conduct an interview with the SABC’S Metro FM in the evening.
“Members of the media are advised to respect this approach.”
Shivambu extended the ANCYL’S gratitude to everyone who had sent messages of support following Wednesday’s decision by the ANC’S national disciplinary committee to expel Malema. He thanked mem- bers of the ANC and the league who “went to defend” Malema’s house in Seshego, near Polokwane in Limpopo, from “rascals”.
Anti-malema elements drove around Seshego in the early hours yesterday, taunting his supporters by carrying a tombstone fashioned from a cardboard box. It had the words “RIP Julius S Malema”, “dictator” and “corrupted” written on it.
Meanwhile, the fight for Malema’s political life – and the preservation of the youth league’s autonomy – will see two parallel and, at times, overlapping processes unfold.
This includes the ANC’S internal disciplinary process and the youth league’s political strategy, much of which will be played out behind the scenes, with fierce lobbying
expected in the branches of the ANC – where the real power lies – to drum up support before the party’s elective conference in Mangaung in December. The conference has the final say on any decision by a structure of the party.
Officially, Malema another league officials have 14 days to appeal against the judgment and sentence with the national disciplinary committee of appeals (NDCA).
Once they have notified the committee of their intention to appeal – which they have gone on record as saying they will – the NDCA, chaired by senior ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Cyril Ramaphosa, will, at its discretion, set a date for the defence and prosecution to submit their heads of argument. This will take some time. Then, given that many of the committee members are full-time cabinet members with conflicting schedules, a date will have to be found to hear the verbal arguments from Malema’s defence and the ANC’S prosecution.
The hearing itself may take a few days or weeks. The NDCA then sits to deliberate.
Realistically it will take about a month for the ruling by the NDCA, which is “final and binding”, to be handed down to Malema and his fellow accused. They are league secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa, who was handed a three-year suspended sentence and ordered to apologise to former youth league president Malusi Gigaba for derogatory com- ments he made about him, and spokesman Floyd Shivambu, suspended from the ANC and the league for three years.
While the ANC wants to wrap up the processes, the NDCA will not want to appear to be too hasty and desperate to get rid of Malema.
Malema’s defence has thus far succeeded in prolonging the disciplinary action and it is likely it will continue to try to buy time. If the NDCA upholds the judgment by the disciplinary committee, Malema’s expulsion takes immediate effect and he will, according to the ANC’S constitution, cease to be president of the youth league.
Even if the NDCA opts to soften the sentence of expulsion, the fact that it has already confirmed the guilty finding on the charge of sowing divi- sion in the party, for which Malema already has a two-year suspended sentence, means that two-year suspension will kick in.
But the ANC Youth League branches resolved at the league’s lekgotla last month that Malema would remain president of the league regardless, on the basis that a clause in its constitution – amended by the congress that elected Malema in June – stipulated that, in the event the ANC suspended or expelled a youth league member, “such penalties shall be subjected to the internal enquiry by the corresponding disciplinary structure of the ANCYL”.
The league’s national executive committee meets on Sunday, when this is likely to be discussed. As the league has also argued that the current leadership was elected by the more than 5 000 delegates at the congress and that only they have the power to remove the leaders, more drama can be expected in the weeks leading to the ANC’S national policy conference in June.
When the internal appeal process is exhausted, the ANC NEC can be petitioned to review the ruling.
This is not automatic, however, since the youth league would have to persuade a member of the NEC to take up the matter for review. This will be the first test of Malema’s support in the NEC but, given the political climate, it appears few ANC bigwigs are prepared to come out in support Malema for fear of being associated with the ANC’S enfant terrible.