ANCYL meeting off to a slow start

2010-08-24 16:59

Johannesburg - Registration of delegates ahead of the ANC Youth League's National General Council got off to a slow start on Tuesday.

The process, which was meant to kick off at 08:00, started after midday after glitches with the league's computer system.

Delegates have been bussed in from across the country. They slept on the grass in the afternoon sun at the Rivonia Recreation Club in Sunninghill as they waited for their accreditation to attend the policy gathering.

By 15:00, delegates had begun queuing to register - with most in good spirits, singing struggle songs as they waited in line.

The three-day NGC officially begins at Gallagher Estate in Midrand on Wednesday, with about 3 000 delegates from the league's 2 600 branches.

ANC chairperson Baleka Mbete was set to deliver the keynote address and ANCYL president Julius Malema was expected to then present a political report.

On the league's agenda for the gathering was a presentation on the nationalisation of mines.

It will also debate the character of the ANC and what the party's youth wing envisions for the ruling party when it turns 100 in 2012.

Malema this week said the leadership elected in 2012 should be about "generational mix".

The ANCYL in the Eastern Cape on Monday said it would push for the league to resolve that the organisation support deputy police minister Fikile Mbalula to replace ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe at the ANC elective conference in 2012.

Reports in the run-up to the ANCYL NGC have indicated that the gathering would be used by Malema to settle political scores with little substance or political content.

The league was recently rocked by divisions caused by jostling for positions at provincial level in the run-up to its national leadership race next year.

The league's NGC was expected to formalise policy positions to take forward to the NGC of its mother body, the ANC, in Durban next month.

- SAPA