Free State premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae and the ANC leadership are in for a serious march aimed at turning tables on the province.
This comes after the ANCYL in the province had stated boldly that the ANC young lions would be taking to the streets on June 30 to demand 50 000 promised jobs which never materialised.
Due to the high national unemployment rate, the ANCYL in the Free State had decided to end the Youth Month by holding Letsoha-Mathae, her government, and the ANC accountable for failing to create promised jobs for the youth.
Election promises
This was the ticket the ruling party was using to win the votes in the past national and provincial elections in May 2025.
However, millions of youngsters are still without jobs.
The youth league will start their protest from the ANC provincial headquarters in Kaizer Sebothelo Building in Bloemfontein. They will proceed to the premier’s office at OR Tambo House at the corner of Markgraaf and St Andrew’s streets, just a few metres away from the ruling party’s offices.
The ANCYL provincial secretary, Jackson Mthembu, said the provincial executive committee has resolved to lead the march to demand urgent and concrete action in response to the deepening crisis of youth unemployment.
“The march will begin at the ANC Free State Provincial Office and proceed to the premier’s office, where thousands of young people will submit their CVs as a symbolic and direct challenge to the status quo,” said Mthembu.
Youth Month protest
“This year, the ANC Youth League has taken a conscious decision to commemorate Youth Month in protest.
“We refuse to celebrate hollow victories while our generation is being sacrificed on the altar of budget cuts, austerity, and economic exclusion. We will honour the 1976 generation not with platitudes, but with action,” said Mthembu.
“After studying the 2025 State of the Province Address (SOPA) and the R45.8-billion 2025/26 Provincial Budget, it is clear that the Free State government is not taking youth unemployment seriously.
“What we are witnessing is not merely an oversight — it is a political choice. The Free State’s entire budget planning remains anchored in neoliberal policy frameworks that have failed and continue to fail low income earners and the working class, especially the youth.
“The obsession with fiscal restraint over social investment, the reliance on private sector-led growth while the state retreats from direct job creation, and the absence of a youth-focused industrial policy — all reflect a deliberate ideological alignment with neoliberalism.
Freedom charter
“This represents a betrayal of the Freedom Charter and a tragic abandonment of the developmental state vision long championed by our movement. Today, the Free State holds the shameful and unacceptable title of having the highest youth unemployment rate in the country, even exceeding the national average,” he said.
He also stated that more than 442 000 young people aged 15 – 34 years are not employed. This includes graduates, discouraged jobseekers, hustlers, informal traders, young women and youth with disabilities who are continuously left out of economic planning.
“This is not just a statistic. It is a mass grave of dreams. We are sitting on a ticking time bomb. If this crisis is not addressed with urgency, the province will face a revolt of the excluded.
“If the Free State government does not act, it will face its own version of the Arab Spring. When hope is denied, unrest becomes inevitable. The ANC Youth League will not stand idle while our generation is being condemned to permanent unemployment,” said Mthembu.
