'Coward' Lamola wants popularity, YCL says
2012-05-04 20:01
Johannesburg - ANC Youth League deputy president Ronald Lamola is searching for popularity by attacking others, the Young Communist League in the Eastern Cape said on Friday.
"[YCL] notes with both concern and amusement, the fact that the deputy president of the ANCYL is on a quest of announcing his arrival in politics through attacking both the national secretary of the YCL [and the organisation]," provincial secretary Mluleki Dlelanga said in a statement.
"This is a desperate attempt for media popularity and our national secretary shall not enter popularity contest with the Lamolas of this world."
According to a report on Wednesday, Lamola called YCL general secretary Buti Manamela a "coward" who had suddenly found the courage to speak out against the youth league, because Julius Malema had been expelled from the African National Congress.
This was after Manamela told a Workers' Day rally in Durban on Tuesday that the ANCYL had been taken over by "Superman and Batman" politicians who were interested in positions of power.
Dlelanga said Lamola was a "political virgin" who had no knowledge about the YCL's organisational autonomy.
"We are however, appalled by the fact that he chose to ride on the same bike with those who today find themselves in the political wilderness," he said.
"We call upon the ANCYL, our reliable revolutionary ally, to work with the Young Communist League of South Africa... and not allow our unity to be compromised by those who want to lead from the grave."
- SAPA
