The Malema Dilemma
I have been resisting, until now to write about the outcome and subsequent fallout of the Malema DC. I have for the past week followed the news in the media with increasing dismay. Dismay at both the way the media is carrying the story and dismay at the foolish and childish way the ANCYL and it’s leadership are handling the matter.
It is quite clear that Malema, Magaqa, Mabe, Lamola, Shivambu and Mosenogi either do not understand the ANC constitution or are being deliberately misled. In both cases, we must be scared. It will do them very well to read the ANC constitution, I just did.
Firstly, the argument of ANCYL independence from the ANC is a non starter and should not even be worthy of a discussion. Just read the ANCYL constitution Preamble together with the ANC constitution Rule 7.4 and all doubt will be thrown out the window.
Secondly, Julius can not on the one hand say the whole process was unfair and members of the NDC are compromised. He goes on to say that in fact all leaders on the NEC are compromised since they have all “welcomed” the outcome of the DC but in the same breath he claims to have total confidence in the processes of the movement.
Thirdly, the argument that the NDC used an outdated version of the ANCYL constitution is scandalous at best. By their own admission, the accused admitted to not presenting the resolutions of the ANCYL’s 24th Congress hoping they would have presented them at the meeting of the 8th August that was postponed prompting them to barge into a meeting of the top 6. The ANC then, by that admission does not officially possess resolutions from their June conference and would then still refer to what they hold and had approved.
Even if they had presented the resolutions to the ANC by the time the DC process commenced, the changes to the ANCYL constitution that Julius alluded to in his press conference would have been invalid as they are in conflict with both the Preamble to the ANCYL constitution and more importantly the ANC constitution. In short, the result of an ANC DC is binding on the league because of the superiority of the ANC constitution over that of the league and any amendment of the League’s constitution to the contrary would be invalid.
Fourthly, Julius is right that the DC wasn’t just about discipline. But the in the same vein, it wasn’t about the League’s positions on land reform, nationalization and their economic freedom fight.
The ill discipline within the League’s leadership, in my view, gave an opportunity to their Mangaung opponents to deliver an unexpected blow to the League’s plan for Mangaung. It is no secret that Malema et al are campaigning against Zuma and Mantashe removal at Mangaung next year and they can’t then simply expect these two to sit on their laurels and not return the fight. Malema et al simply fell in to the trap that Mbeki fell into, they underestimated Zuma. The DC was then a legitimate one that suited their Mangaung opponents very well. That is the dirty game of politics and these young men should have known better then to underestimate their opponents.
The claim that the outcome of the DC was pre determined because of utterances of people who do not sit on the NDC does not even merit counter argument. Mantashe was part of the Officials that pressed charges and would naturally believe in the accused guilt, nothing extra ordinary about that.
Fifthly, the argument that some of the members of the NDC should have recused themselves because of their opposition to some of the YL’s policy proposals is ridiculous at best. The YL was not facing the DC and these YL leaders were facing charges emanating from ill discipline and not from the League’s position on certain matters. ANC members always have differing opinion on issues and still are expected to carry out their ANC duties without fear or favour.
The media has been quite disappointing in their reporting of the Malema issue. We are seeing a repeat of the Zuma story. The media simply write tilting towards the result they want to see! Here, that is to see Malema expelled, without any objectivity whatsoever. I would have expected journalists to point out at the glaring contradictions in the Malema statement yesterday, but no, that would have killed the sensationalism in the story and they were promptly ignored by many publications.
Even the story about the NDC using an outdated version of the YL constitution, no one in a room full of dozens of journalists put it to him that the YL hadn’t presented their conference resolutions to the ANC yet or that even if they did the new amendments would have been in conflict to the ANC constitution.
What we must know though is that Malema is going nowhere soon and he has shown himself to have balls, balls of steel (misplaced as they are, I believe). He has also shown to be ill-disciplined and incapable of playing the delicate game of political tap dancing that Zuma learnt over decades as the right hand man to Thabo Mbeki.
He has shown himself to be a bully who, when cornered, fails to separate fact from fiction. Funny though that his ill discipline was exploited by the same people he now calls his enemies. Julius said sometime ago, “there are no permanent friends and enemies in politics”. It will do him well to remember those words.
The Social Commentator 
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