Three years after withdrawing from the race to lead the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), former Cosas president Collen Malatji is running again following the election of incumbent Nonceba Mhlauli to the ANC national executive committee (NEC) at Nasrec in December.
Malatji, a member of the ANCYL national task team, is squaring off against ANCYL national organiser Tlangi Mogale and NTT spokesperson Sizophila Mkhize, touted as the main contenders following Mhlauli’s election to the mother body’s top leadership structure.
His lobbyists said the former Ekurhuleni ANCYL coordinator was convinced to resuscitate his presidential ambitions by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s supporters.
They said Malatji was seen as the best candidate to take over control of the young lions and ward off a challenge from Mogale and Sizophila.
The duo is believed to have supported former health minister Zweli Mkhize’s failed bid to replace Ramaphosa as ANC president at the Nasrec national elective conference.
Malatji, 29, dubbed Ekurhuleni’s most influential youth in 2018, this week confirmed he was running for the ANCYL presidency. “After Nonceba was elected to the NEC, calls for me to relaunch my campaign increased and I have been working on it since then.”
He said he pulled out of the race in 2019 to support Mhlauli because it would have been historic for the ANC youth arm to be led by a female.
Malatji said he had felt it was time for impactful change because, for the longest time, women had been oppressed and suffered gender discrimination. At the time he had enjoyed the support of lobbyists such as youth leaders like Thembi Siweya, the current Deputy Minister in the Presidency, and Northern Cape activist Tshepo Louw, who said young people were responding well to Malatji’s bid.
A mole close to Malatji disclosed to Sunday World this week that they were engaging with Mkhize to pull out from the presidential race and run for the deputy position instead.
“We are engaging her not to contest because there is seniority in the movement. Apart from that, at the ANC conference that we just came from, there was a contest between Ramaphosa and Mkhize. Sizophila was seen as extremely involved in the contest supporting
Zweli against Cyril. That compromised her,” said a source.
“We are also engaging among ourselves to find legal ground for this matter because she is a good comrade who also grew up in the movement.
“In fact, we are trying to lobby her into backing us (his campaign) because we want to go to a peaceful ANCYL conference,” added the tipster.
Sizophila confirmed that she would not be backing down on her campaign, she told Sunday World that she has already garnered enough support to soldier on.
“I am still running for presidency of the ANCYL and I am still open to engagements from other comrades and have no final slate as yet. We are in talks with other comrades who are also available for the top 5 and nothing finalised yet.
“[However], I do not know if there is a plan anywhere by anyone to ask me to withdraw and support any candidate. I believe I have enough support from young people, those who asked me to stand in the first place, it can only be them who can convince me otherwise,” she said.
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