ANC ditches radical youth leader for his ‘serious misconduct’

South Africa’s governing African National Congress has sacked its controversial youth leader and suspended him for five years for bringing the party into disrepute.

Julius Malema, once a key ally of president Jacob Zumba, has attracted criticism in recent months for his outspoken comments which often contradict party policy.

“The acts of misconduct for which the respondent has been found guilty are very serious, and have damaged the integrity of the ANC and South Africa’s international reputation,” said Derek Hanekom, chairman of the party’s national disciplinary committee.

The ANC said Mr Malema’s membership was frozen because he questioned whether Mr Zuma was providing the kind of pan-African leadership that former president Thabo Mbeki had provided.

Mr Malema had previously helped bring Mr Zuma to power, vowing he would kill for the man that replaced Mr Mbeki.

Recently, however, he has called for Mr Zuma to be replaced as party leader ahead of election in 2014.

His suspension also related to his criticism of neighbouring Botswana, which he described as imperialist.

The sanction deprives Mr Malema, who has been active in the ANC since he was a primary school pupil and it was a banned group battling apartheid, of a formal power base.

Mr Malema had also made a number of comments which embarrassed the party leadership – calling for nationalisation of South Africa’s mines and declaring his party’s support for Robert Mugabe in 2010, despite Mr Zuma being involved in negotiations between the country’s coalition members at the time.

In a previous rebuke, Mr Malema was found guilty of using hate speech after singing Shoot the Boer, a controversial apartheid-era song which has since been banned.

Only a few of Mr Malema’s supporters were outside ANC headquarters when the decision was announced. They showed little reaction, contrasting with crowds who rioted when the disciplinary hearings against Mr Malema began in August, when demonstrators had burned ANC flags and T-shirts bearing Mr Zuma’s image.

Yesterday, Mr Malema said that he would appeal against the decision.

“We are not intimidated by any outcome,” he said in the northern town of Polokwane, where he addressed a small crowd of supporters. “The ANC is our home.”

Mr Malema has portrayed himself as the political heir of former Youth League leaders like Nelson Mandela, who helped found the league in 1944.

The ANC’s disciplinary committee appeared to take issue with comparisons to Mr Mandela in its ruling against Mr Malema and five other youth league leaders, saying some had shown an “arrogance and defiance” that was “a far cry from the manner in which different leaders of the Youth League, over the decades, conducted their affairs”.

Mr Malema still has influential allies within the ANC, including Mr Mandela’s ex-wife, Winnie. His elders had said they believed he had potential and wanted to groom him for larger roles, but he has repeatedly clashed with the ANC old guard, criticising them for everything from their accents to their politics.

In September, Mr Malema lost a suit brought by a white rights group that had accused him of hate speech for repeatedly singing a song some whites find offensive. Malema and others say Shoot the Boer is a call to resist oppression. “Boer” means farmer in Afrikaans, and is sometimes used to refer to whites.

Mr Malema and his supporters have continued to sing the song despite the September court order banning it.

One Malema supporter said in a tweet: “You can silence the commander-in-chief of the revolution but you can never kill the revolution! Long live President Malema.”