The newly elected leadership of the ANC Youth (ANCYL) League has attacked EFF leader Julius Malema, calling him an ill-disciplined politician masquerading as a radical.
This was according to ANCYL president Collen Malatji and secretary-general Mntuwoxolo Ngudle.
The duo, as well as their top six colleagues, addressed the media at the governing party’s head office in Luthuli House in Johannesburg, saying South Africans should not expect a Malema type of leadership from them.
Malema is largely believed to be the last militant president of the ANCYL before his expulsion in 2012.
Malatji and Ngudle believe that Malema had it coming for being “ill-disciplined”, saying his expulsion from the ANC over a decade ago was well-informed.
“In the youth league context, one of the elements we are dealing with is thinking insults are radicalism. One of the fundamental principles of the revolution is discipline, it is not insults like you see in the EFF,” said Ngudle.
“They think insulting and degrading people is radicalism, but radicalism is the content you represent politically and ideologically.
“Under Malema’s period in the youth league, radicalism was bastardized. That’s why people thought he was expelled on the basis of the generational mission of economic freedom, which was not the case, it was an issue of ill-discipline.”
Concurring with Malatji who fired the first salvo, Ngudle said Malema had to leave the ANC for it to move forward without ill-discipline sold as militancy.
The leaders further denied that they are a project of ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, who has been fingered for cooking conference that elected them to install pliable leaders.
The talk is gaining momentum in political circles that Mbalula is building a “machinery” towards the next ANC national congress in 2027 to run for president of the party, and the newly elected ANCYL leaders are believed to be the first building block towards that goal
But Malatji dismissed the talk as nothing but media creation fueled by those who are opposed to him being elected youth league president.
“What is Project 2027? There is no such project, only the media knows about it,” he said.
Malatji and his leadership collective were elected at the weekend during the young lions’ 26th national congress held at the Nasrec Expo Centre near Soweto.
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