A march to a Mpumalanga mayor’s office demanding the end to corruption and youth unemployment is interpreted by the ANCYL as an attack to the leadership of the mother-body in the region and this can result in a physical clash.
The Young Communist League in the Gert Sibande region has set the date of 28 February 2017 as the date when they will march to and gather outside Gert Sibande mayor Muzi Chirwa’s office and deliver a memorandum.
But the ANCYL in the Gert Sibande region of Mpumalanga is having none of it and has said it views this as an attack on Chirwa – who is also the chairman of the ANC in the region – a form of “coup”. In its statement the YL declared that they will “confront it with all that we have at our disposal”.
READ: Gert Sibande YCL, ANCYL lock horns again
“We declare a date with the YCL,” league spokesman Thulasizwe Thomo said, referring to the 28th February.
“We shall meet at the Gert Sibande district municipal gates, because they have successfully defined themselves outside the alliance and they have continuously failed to forge unity where necessary, all they care about is nothing but to take over the ANC by force and by advancing narrow factional interests,” Thomo said.
The YCL have vowed they will gather outside the district offices in Ermelo on 28 February and deliver the memorandum despite the threats.
Two sources within the Gert Sibande SACP regional executive committee said leaders of the party were worried of the spats between the two tripartite youth wings “which is expressed dangerously on Facebook”.
“We feel that we need to meet comrade Muzi Chirwa and Audrey Maleka and discuss the issue of the YCL and ANCYL before the date of the march,” the communist regional executive committee member said.
“We want the militant voice of the YCL but at the same time we don’t want the YCL to take issues personally. But the YCL is our child, we can talk to them but how do we ensure that the ANCYL also don’t take issues personally?” he asked.
He said they were worried of a possible physical clash between the YCL and ANCYL outside the district offices.
“The province had an alliance summit and we feel the resolutions of the alliance summit are not communicated in the region,” he said.
The alliance summit in April 2016 was a meeting of the alliance partners of the ANC – Cosatu, SANCO and SACP – and it attempted to unite SACP provincial leader Bonakele Majuba and ANC chairman David Mabuza who have not been seeing eye to eye since 2010.
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The spat between the two cubs of the alliance came barely 24 hours after the ANC’s 105th birthday bash at the Mbombela stadium on 29 January whose theme was ‘unity in action’.
(edited by MLM)
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