ANCYL calls Pityana 'a clown'

2008-04-03 19:10

Bloemfontein - Outgoing African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Fikile Mbalula criticised University of SA Rector Barney Pityana on Thursday for making "a clown of himself" after comments about ANC president Jacob Zuma.

Mbalula said the ANCYL condemned the continued slander by some self-imposed political commentators and analysts on the integrity of the ANC president and for challenging his bona fides.

"Yet again some Professor Pityana has made a clown of himself by his overzealous confusion and comical postulations about the ANC president and the ANC leadership," said Mbalula, delivering the Youth League's political report at its national congress in Bloemfontein.

Hundreds of ANCYL delegates are attending the conference at the University of the Free State.

Pityana earlier said Zuma had failed to inspire confidence during his first few months at the party's helm.

'Disrespects ANC leadership'

Pityana said: "To many of us, Jacob Zuma, popularly elected by the branch delegates at Polokwane in December 2007, remains a flawed character in his moral conduct; he has been indicted for serious crimes that involve corruption and dishonesty."

Mbalula said Pityana had talked about respect for the constitution and the rule of law, but had found it fashionable to disrespect the democratically elected ANC leadership and its president, and finding him (Zuma) guilty before any court of law pronounced on the matter.

"As a professor, we can't educate him about the cardinal principle of innocent until proven guilty. Maybe he knows something that we don't know," said Mbalula to loud applause.

Mbalula accused Pityana of being a typical ivory-tower academic and ignorant reactionary who had to sober up and cross over the road from Polokwane.

"The train has long passed the station and it's time he (Pityana) wakes up from the slumberland and smells the coffee.

"What constituency does he really represent," asked Mbalula.

The ANC earlier also came out in defence of Zuma.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe described Pityana's statements as "spurious" and a reflection of "intellectual bankruptcy".

Mbalula told delegates the ANCYL would always be a critical tool for South Africa's youth in pursuit for a better life.

'Youthful political debate'

"The ANCYL is a mass political youth organisation of the ANC that reinforces the programmes of the ANC in society, and reproduces the ideas of the ANC among the youth".

He said the autonomy of the ANCYL always would provide organisational vibrancy and youthful political debate within the movement.

"Although we relate with the ANC as an autonomous organisation we form an integral part of the ANC in the formulation and development of the policies and programmes of the ANC."

The conference continues until Saturday.

- SAPA