New challenge to ANC leadership in South Africa

From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 1 October

Jacob Zuma’s leadership of the ruling ANC in South Africa is being challenged by 30-year-old Julius Malema, leader of the ANC youth league.

Malema, an admirer of Robert Mugabe, Castro and Gaddafi, is calling for the expropriation of white-owned land and nationalisation of South Africa’s mines, which has, according to the Financial Times, “placed him at odds with members of the government and alarmed the business community but [has] captured the imagination of poorer black South Africans frustrated by growing inequality, lack of employment opportunities and poor services”. (‘Violent clashes outside Malema hearing’ by William Wallis and Andrew England, 1 September 2011)

The furies of private interest have descended on Malema and five other leaders of the ANC youth wing, who face a disciplinary committee on charges of sowing division within the party and bringing it into dispute by calling for regime change in neighbouring Botswana. Malema is also being investigated for fraud.