Lungisa faces no confidence vote
2010-08-27 07:52
Midrand - A motion of no confidence has been brought against ANC Youth League deputy president Andile Lungisa, ANCYL president Julius Malema said on Thursday.
"There is a motion of no confidence against the deputy president of the youth league, but it's not a resolution as yet," Malema told a media briefing at the ANCYL's first national general council, held in Midrand.
As he spoke, Lungisa sat on his right hand side staring straight ahead.
"It can be guaranteed that the NGC will act in the best interests of the youth league," Malema added.
Lungisa was set to challenge Malema for the league's top spot at the ANCYL's elective conference in 2011.
Leadership battle
The battle for the league presidency has been playing out at provincial level, but Malema emerged victorious with most of his supporters in leadership positions across the country.
Attempts to get comment from Lungisa about the motion proved futile.
"I do not wish to speak to the media. I have nothing to say," he said.
Malema said the motion would be "processed" and a decision would be taken on Lungisa’s political future on Friday.
It was clear that NGC delegates were aware of the motion but declined to comment until the process had been finalised.
On Wednesday, Malema issued a veiled threat to those who felt it was their "divine right to lead".
"Those who believe they have a divine right to lead by hook or by crook will never succeed," he said, adding that the league would "deal decisively" with them.
Settling political scores
A recent report in the City Press claimed the NGC would be used by Malema to "settle political scores" and that the gathering was unlikely to have any content of substance.
Songs belted out on the first day of the NGC on Wednesday included the words, in isiXhosa: "Andile Lungisa, we put you at Luthuli House and all you did there was sleep, what's this stupidity, voetsek!"
They also sang that Malema had nothing to fear because the power was his.
Malema said the songs and council resolutions were predictions on what was to come in the ANC.
"The message in the songs is likely to be the future. You must be guaranteed that everything we discuss here will be adopted by the ANC," he said.
The discussions would include the nationalisation of the South African mines, which the league wanted its mother body, the ANC, to incorporate into its own policy.
"This is not a rented crowd from a shebeen, they come from structures of the ANC."
Delegates were continuously singing in support of Deputy Police Minister Fikile Mbalula to replace ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe at the ruling party’s elective conference in 2012.
Mantashe was also ridiculed in the songs.
Malema and the league leadership danced along in support of Mbalula, but the youth league leader quipped that he actually did not pay attention to the words because the melody was that of an old revolutionary song.
"I thought the song said kusasa ekuseni ngo four o'clock siyokhulula uMandela [tomorrow morning at four o' clock we will free Mandela]. We were just dancing to an old song, it reminded us of the early ages. That’s what we were dancing to."
Malema said he learned of the message carried in the song "through radio".
Apology to Manamela
The fiery leader was also adamant that his apology to Young Communist League national secretary Buti Manamela, who was shouted down at the NGC, was sincere.
"We don't play with apologies. It's very difficult to get an apology from us," he said.
Delegates on Wednesday shouted Manamela down as he tried to deliver a message of support from the YCL. The large crowd refused to give him a hearing and he eventually left.
Manamela has been quoted as saying the incident was planned and he did not believe Malema's apology, given shortly after the incident, was genuine.
The YLC dismissed the apology as "half-hearted, insincere and sarcastic".
"We are not being sarcastic about it [the apology], we mean it," Malema said.
"Nobody planned what happened... delegates were highly charged and agitated."
He added that relations had been strained with the SA Communist Party and the YCL -- and that the YCL was "communicating badly" about many league issues, particularly at provincial level.
This may have been the reason delegates reacted harshly toward Manamela.
The league and the SA Communist Party, the YCL's governing body, have been at loggerheads publicly since Malema was booed at an SACP conference in December last year.
The ANC’s national executive committee earlier this year took a firm stance on "public spats" between party and alliance members. This has not, however, stopped the SACP and the ANCYL from their verbal sparring.
- SAPA