With the ANC’s breakaway group campaigning on a Julius Malema-gevaar ticket, the battle is on to lure disgruntled young people away from the ruling party’s youth league.
A network of youth leaders working inside the ANC are assisting the splinter group to set up its youth wing, which expects to launch in the next few weeks.
Anele Mda, the splinter group’s interim national convener says most members will be defectors from the ANC Youth League (ANCYL).
She says that in the Eastern Cape the breakaway group has taken control of 110 out of the 162 ANCYL branches in the OR Tambo district, all 62 branches in Alfred Nzo, 72 in Amathole and 38 at the Cacadu district.
The Northern Cape “Shikota” provincial convener, McBride Motsage, says the ANCYL is as good as dead because the majority of the branches have crossed to the breakaway group. Motsage was an ANCYL regional executive committee member in the province and provincial treasurer of the Young Communist League.
The biggest reason for the split in the league is Julius Malema’s leadership style, according to most of the people who spoke to the Mail & Guardian.
“We’ve come to a point of acknowledging the huge crisis that is created by the existence of Malema. The ANCYL has got only one item on the agenda, it’s [Jacob] Zuma,” Mda said.
ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu says the organisation is not worried about the looming split because “it was going to be too much of an expectation that with the recent developments the youth league will not be affected”.
But he says the impact on the Youth League is being exaggerated.
“It’s not official structures of the ANC Youth League that are leaving, it’s disgruntled people and some of them have either been suspended or expelled,” said Shivambu.
But he acknowledged that some of the concerns raised by the people who are now leaving the youth league are valid and could’ve been addressed better. “Lekota and Shilowa are taking advantage of that genuine anger.”
Provincial convener of the “Shikota” youth movement in the Western Cape Vuyisile Schoeman says the splinter group has secured control of all Khayelitsha branches and some of those in the Boland and the West Coast.
Some “Shikota” youth conveners prefer to remain anonymous for now. The person identified as the “Shikota” provincial representative in the North West denied that he is part of the grouping. Coordinators for Mpumalanga, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State did not want to be named because they are still operating within the ANCYL. However, despite the preferred anonymity all confirmed that they’re consulting other youth groupings about breaking away from the league. Leaders of the “Shikota” youth movement in Limpopo are expected to reveal their identities on Monday when they’ll be announcing their programme of action.