Business Day
*ANC Youth League needs to reinvent itself to remain relevant * *Setumo Stone, Business Day, Johannesburg, 13 February 2012*WITH Julius Malema appearing to sing his swan song at the weekend, the next challenge for the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League will be for the organisation to reinvent itself in such a way that it remains relevant and influential in the broader ANC and South African politics.
Any desire by Mr Malema's supporters to save his political career at all cost could lead to a total collapse of the youth league, and it would take years to rebuild a youth movement with the same historical and political weight as the ANC Youth League.
The youth league --- which has been the most vocal wing of the ruling party --- could suffer the same fate as the ANC Women's League, which has been reduced to a women's desk in the ruling party and voting fodder.
It is expected that the youth league lekgotla, concluded yesterday, will --- as part of the various strategies to save Mr Malema --- resolve to petition the mother body's national executive committee (NEC) to review the suspension, or submit Mr Malema's case as a discussion document at the ANC national conference in Mangaung in December.
This comes as Mr Malema --- who has not shown any remorse since he was penalised --- is facing the threat of a harsher sentence during mitigation, as the ANC would be allowed to show aggravating evidence.
In a speech that sounded carefully crafted to project himself as a martyr, Mr Malema said in his opening address of the national executive committee lekgotla that he was "now preparing our lives outside the ANC, and possibly in prison".
We stand here with a guilty verdict, he said, for abiding by ANC decisions and expressing intentions to do what the national congress of the ANC Youth League said we should do.
Before the lekgotla at the weekend, some of the league's provincial structures had spoken out against the ANC appeals committee's decision to uphold Mr Malema's suspension, with the Eastern Cape faction stating that it would not recognise his suspension.
However, the youth league needs to put forth a principled stance in support of Mr Malema, and this could be undermined by ill- disciplined rhetoric.
In his address to the lekgotla, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe urged the league to identify key strategic tasks facing it, so that the leadership of the movement was focused and effective.
"The stratification of the youth along class, gender and race, amongst others, also represents a challenge to the organisation in many different ways," Mr Motlanthe said.
The ANC Youth League should aim to be the resonance of feeling of all young people across classes and strata in SA, he said.
The youth league would also need to pay closer attention to dealing with exclusivity, individualism, greed and other social delinquencies that divided the organisation and threatened social cohesion in society in general, Mr Motlanthe said.
Political analyst Steven Friedman says that, for the youth league to be renewed, it will have to be rescued from the "faction" that controls it, and a new leadership has to be democratically elected .
"The youth league is acting on instructions," Mr Friedman says. "It will not get stronger after Mr Malema, it will get weaker ."Mr Friedman is not convinced that there are real efforts to save Mr Malema, as the youth league is divided, with some within the leadership aspiring to his position.
The youth league has to distinguish clearly between the campaign to rescue Mr Malema, and the plan to unseat President Jacob Zuma in Mangaung. Treating both campaigns as one and the same could isolate potential supporters.
Mr Zuma might appear to be in a strong position for re-election, but some within the ANC structures might not be convinced that he is the right person to take the party forward for the next five years.
While this could be true, political analyst Ralph Mathekga warns that there might be support for the ANC Youth League because "there is too much of the politics of convenience and personalities within the ANC which are not driven by the policies".
"There are people in the ANC national executive committee who do not like Mr Zuma and think that he is directionless," he says.
In the end, t he youth league members will have to find creative ways to channel their anger in a manner that sustains them as a political force.
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