ANC Youth League has been ‘muted’, hold no threat to leadership

The demise of the ANC Youth League and the absorption of most of its key leaders into positions of power at national, provincial and local level has led to most of them being muted as a politically independent force within the ANC, according to two leading political analysts.

Confident of getting a list of demands addressed by the party’s NEC, Luthuli House march organiser Senzo Nkabinde said: “We are going to force the ANC NEC to choose between serving the best interests of the country or their selfish interest of protecting a president who is destroying the country.

“The forthcoming mass action will be on 29 July – in the form of legitimate and peaceful civil disobedience.

“We don’t want a South Africa where the president, government or ruling party leaders behave in the manner that renders them supreme – regarding themselves in any way that places them above the supremacy of the constitution and rule of law,” said Nkabinde.

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The recent march to Luthuli House ANC headquarters ended in predominantly young party members and a sprinkling of veterans calling for the resignation of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Independent political analyst Dale McKinley and University of Pretoria politics lecturer Roland Henwood both said youth revolutionaries had been “muted”.

They said current protests pushing for the recall of Ramaphosa would have no impact in changing the current status quo. They found the march to have been largely driven by factional battles in the run-up to the party’s national conference in December.

McKinley said: “I do not think the march was particularly significant, with minimum numbers, having fundamentally failed to mobilise very many people. He said the demise of a revolutionary youth movement did not mean “that there is no potential for younger people to demand access, more positions and more say in the party”.

“Although this is a slow-burning campaign, the youth within the ANC has not been powerful at all in engineering change within the party,” said McKinley.

Henwood concurred: “At this stage, it is no more significant than any other factional divisions that characterise the ANC.

“Youth members are party to this and have been, going far back – when the ANC Youth League under Julius Malema became so divisive and threatening.

“They were disbanded and effectively driven out.”

Despite calls for a leadership change, Henwood said ANC leaders were “well-insulated from these kind of events”. The youth were disempowered during the Jacob Zuma era.

“It will take some time and being deft for this to change, with possibly many politically active younger members finding themselves with … other political parties.”