/ 18 December 2009

Has Juju lost his mojo?

The press conference started like any other where the president of the ANC Youth League is the headline act: the room was packed to the rafters and pregnant with expectation.

So it was a satisfied Julius Malema who strode into the room followed by his in-house kitchen cabinet of Steven Ngobeni, Andile Lungisa, Pule Mabe and Floyd Shivambu — all leaders of the league.

The one notable absence was the league’s secretary general, Vuyelwa Tulelo; apparently she is on leave.

Team Malema was dressed to kill, with Malema sporting the latest fashion accessory — a Breitling watch in red gold and crocodile worth R250?000.

The press conference was the crescendo of Malema’s orchestrated campaign to get himself on the right side of public sympathy after being booed by SACP delegates at the communists’ congress last week.

During the booing, Malema demanded that SACP chairperson Gwede Mantashe give him a chance to address the delegates. But, wearing his SACP hat, Mantashe did what few people in the ANC have ever tried to do: he said no to Julius.

Malema then reported the matter to President Jacob Zuma, who is yet to make a clear pronouncement. And with the ANC refusing to come out in support of Malema, he went on a charm offensive.

Issuing statements every day to keep himself in the news, he even roped in provincial youth leaders to issue statements affirming their support for him.

Upping the attention-grabbing stakes, Malema confided to the assembled and expectant reporters that he had interrupted his annual leave to address this press conference, which was transmitted live on the eNews Channel. But he insisted he was not playing to the crowd.

‘Anything you write about me, I don’t care about that,” he said. ‘I’ve not emerged through press conferences. I’m chosen by the poorest youth of South Africa.”

His audience, which included European diplomats, was ready to be entertained. Journalists were poised to scribble down those choice quotes that would make the headlines and land their stories on the front page.

But despite Malema’s war talk and his denouncing of ‘yellow communists” he didn’t quite deliver the headline goods everyone was waiting for.

He first declared that the ANC Youth League considers the booing by the communists — who quite a while ago called the league’s president an African chauvinist — ‘an invitation to war”. But when asked for clarification, Malema diluted this, saying: ‘If this is a declaration of war they must say so.” And finally he asked the communists to ‘clarify” whether this was a call to war or not.

War talk or small talk?

Our video from Malema’s recent press conference, rife with contradiction over an impending ”war” with the communists.

watch the video

Then Malema was asked about rumours that Lungisa, the league’s deputy president, wants to take over as president — a possibly insolent hint that Malema’s power might not be uncontested. But Malema answered with suave eloquence that Lungisa will make a fine successor.

Ngobeni at this point chipped in, revealing that some people are telling him that he is smarter than Malema and could do a better job of running the youth league. His ostensible point was that this illustrates the divide- and-rule tactics some of Malema’s detractors use.

But perhaps the detractors have succeeded. Malema may now be hauled in for his first disciplinary hearing about his comments on the communists — and his backers are openly admitting they are waiting in the wings for him to step aside.

So his comments are diluted and without their usual punchiness. And therefore, most importantly, he fails to make a headline.

This article was part of a two-page spread in the Mail & Guardian’s lead story for December 18 to 22 2009. Read the other stories:

 

M&G Newspaper