ANC youth - leaderless?

While the rest of South Africa celebrated Youth day on Sunday 16 June, the majority of young people supporting the ANC Youth League in Limpopo lamented the fact that they are leaderless. This follows a decision by a task team of the youth league’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to disband the ANCYL provincial executive committee (PEC) and three regional leadership structures - one of them belonging to the Waterberg Region.
Northern News spoke to ousted provincial spokesperson for the ANCYL, Klaas Mabunda, who on Tuesday confirmed that no interim leadership have been appointed. “The task team informed us that an interim committee would be appointed on Monday, but no appointment has been made,” Mabunda said on Tuesday.
Mabunda believes that the disbandment of leadership structures within the provincial ANCYL will disadvantage the ANC during the upcoming election. “There are more than three million new voters who will vote in the next election. This ‘Mandela generation’ [also known as the “born frees”] who were born after SA became a democratic country will have a great impact on the outcome of the election.”
“Many of these young ones are devoted ANCYL members, some of them have led ANCYL branches from the age of 16. By taking away that power, the ANC might, to a certain extent, alienate them.
“We, as the former PEC, accept the task team’s decision and when speaking to the youth we tell them to accept the decision. We hope that Limpopo's youth will follow our lead and stay within the ANC,” Mabunda said.
In a statement issued last week the national task team made public the reasons for the disbandment. An excerpt of the statement reads: “It is self-evident and indisputable that the period pre- and post-Mangaung was characterised by a youth league that constituted itself as an independent opposition [from] within the ANC. Ill discipline, anarchy, factionalism, circumventing of organisational processes was the order of the day as long as there were service to a particular faction then at the helm of the ANCYL. Any dissenting voice was viciously dealt with, structures were dissolved and membership was denied or suspension effected. Many an outcome of organisational processes was determined by whether one supported the dominant factional line or not. It is in this regard, after thorough assessment emanating from the visits, the task team has decided to disband the said ANCYL structures.”
Former Waterberg Regional League chairperson, Sipho Mhlanga, told the media last week that the region will respect the decision taken by the task team and will continue to work together with the branches within the Waterberg region.
Chairperson of the ANCYL Lephalale sub-region, Solly Kekae, told Northern News that the task team’s decision greatly impacts branches in the Waterberg. “We are waiting for a decision from the NEC on what our next step should be, we are basically starting over.” According to Kekae the ANCYL in Lephalale supports the task team’s decision. “We are ANC and will remain in the ANC,” he said.