South Africa’s ruling African National Congress is moving on

Julius Malema, violently clashed with the police, breaking down barbed wire barricades that surrounded the headquarters of the ruling ANC in Johannesburg’s inner city.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that the crowd on Tuesday morning in a part of Johannesburg’s CBD was not more than 600, of which just over a hundred were actual ANCYL members. The rest were recruited at some of the schools. The majority of the unruly crowd was not part of the ANC and its Youth League.
The ANC, the ANC’s Eastern Cape branch, the ANC War Veterans, the Cosatu president as well as the youth wing of the new political party that split from the ANC, Cope, condemned Tuesday’s unruly action. And, local political analysts described these young men and women as “the unemployed, restless, helpless and hopeless”.
The ANCYL president and his team appeared in front of a disciplinary committee of South Africa’s ruling party at the ANC Headquarters, Luthuli House.
The accusations are that Malema and his executive are charged with “sowing divisions within the ANC, disrupting an ANC meeting of the top six officials and having called for a regime change in neighbouring Botswana led by Lt- Gen. President Ian Khama, bringing the ANC into disrepute”.
In the dark days of South Africa’s racist colonial-apartheid, the late father of the incumbent president of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama, then president, lent his protection to the ANC.
Prior to the above, reports have been leaked to the media about a leadership struggle within the ANC. There seems to be a plan in place to oust President Jacob Zuma at next year’s summit in Bloemfontein, as mentioned in previous columns.
The local and international media inflated the importance of such rebellious division and internal power struggles within the ANC, as well as the image of the ANCYL.
Minister of Human Settlement and ANC NEC member, Tokyo Sexwale, was the most vocal in denying the contents of those leaked reports. In time, however, those reports proved to have substance.
Sexwale is particularly popular with the white community. He was the first Premier of the Gauteng Province, the country’s wealthiest and most industrialised province. However, then President Nelson Mandela cut his term of office short. That was in the latter half of the 1990s. Sexwale left office as a poor man. Today, he is a billionaire businessman, profiting from the country’s “Black Economic Empowerment” policies.
Certain senior party members named, working against ANC president Zuma include Tokyo Sexwale, Minister in the Cabinet for Human Settlement; Mathews Phosa, ANC Treasurer; Paul Mashathile, Minister of Arts and Culture; Fikile Mbalula, Minister of Sport; former Deputy Minister for Finance, Jabu Molekethi; even former president Thabo Mbeki, the Minister in the Presidency, Trevor Manuel and ANC Youth League Leader, Julius Malema and their teams and followers.
Whilst President Jacob Zuma was on official visit in Norway and his Deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, in Guinea Bissau, Justice Minister Jeff Radebe acted as head of state. At that time, the disciplinary hearing of Malema and his co-accused from the Youth League took place.
The ANC seems factionalised. One of the questions is, is former and re-called president Thabo Mbeki on a come-back-trail? He could very well be. His chances however, are just too vague.
His brother, Moeletsi Mbeki, praised the young ANCYL president as being a good orator and charismatic, claiming that no one else has Malema’s talents. Many others differed from his view though.
Young Julius Malema has meanwhile hired the legal services of Dali Mpofu, fired SABC CEO, and Patrick Mtshaulana. Malema and his legal team would want to drag the process of such disciplinary action out, despite the assurance that they would want a speedy verdict, taking the history of Mpofu and Mtshaulana into consideration.
It would seem that the chances of having the charges dismissed would indeed be remote. It now seems that additional charges of unruly, undisciplined and destructive behaviour by the followers in Johannesburg’s CBD would be added.
The local media further reported on Julius Malema’s amassed wealth, referring to a house of ZAR16 million he is building in the posh Johannesburg suburb of Sandton, a house he is constructing for his grandmother in the northern South African province of Limpopo and his farm, also in the Limpopo province. Malema confidently announced at a media conference that whatever he earned and still does is legal and legitimate.
Malema invited the South African Revenue Services (SARS) to investigate his assets. In that case the law would be taking its course, if there was a case.
The charges against the ANCYL president and his executive seem fair, although his legal team insists on the opposite. This might delay the ANC disciplinary committee’s findings for two weeks. If there are however, any delays, they could buy time to mobilise support and strategise a counter-offensive against the ANC mother body, its disciplinary committee and president Jacob Zuma.
Until now it seems that Julius Malema and his executive would be suspended, which would get him out of the public domain and does not make him a victim, or martyr. His critics say he might even lose his credibility and sympathy.
It is said that it had been quiet around Malema until the AfriForum trial against his and his followers’ singing of “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer”. During that court hearing Malema re-emerged.
Like president Jacob Zuma, Julius Malema is a populist. If he is found guilty and if he becomes the fall guy then, he would have to return to his home base in the northern province of Limpopo, re-strengthening his position there as a member of the youth league, re-establishing the support of his constituency. This would cost time.
For ANCYL president Julius Malema it is a ‘make-or-break’ situation. For South Africa’s and the ruling ANC’s president Jacob Zuma this is enforcing his control and power. If Malema succeeds, the entire leadership will have no further secure positions within the organisation. If Zuma succeeds, he will have secured not only his position, but entrenched his power further. His second term in office would be guaranteed.
It should be taken into mature and informed consideration; South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) in 2011 is not the ANC of pre-1990.
The ANC today is the ruling party of a democratic South Africa with governing responsibilities, part of a South Africa as member of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu), the African Union (AU), the United Nations Organisation (UNO) with additional responsibilities and tasks. Its president is South Africa’s Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.