Will ANC take action or show how toothless it is?

The Herald Editorial: It would appear that ANC Youth League president Julius Malema’s behaviour has finally raised the ire of the leadership of the ANC and its president, Jacob Zuma, who has been at pains to protect him in the past, advancing excuses based on his youth and projecting him as a future national leader.

What has angered the ANC is Malema’s intemperate outburst against a BBC journalist at a press conference that has caused considerable embarrassment to the country and the party.

There was also his support for President Robert Mugabe both in terms of Zimbabwe’s land reform programme and as a candidate for re-election as head of state, thus badly undermining Zuma’s mediation efforts between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC.

While the ANC’s condemnation of Malema’s behaviour is welcomed, it needs to be accepted that had the party - and in particular Zuma – acted earlier to silence him before he embarked on his belligerent and confrontational spree, much of the harm he has caused would have been prevented.

Clearly, the youth leader is unable to distinguish between liberty and licence.

The ANC should have quickly become aware of this, even it did suit Zuma to have Malema serving as a useful weapon to draw attention from his own inadequacies and failings.

Zuma has stated there will be “consequences” should Malema be found to have crossed the line drawn by the ANC.

A great deal will now rest on whether that threat is followed by action and just what steps the party is willing to take against him, given that the last high-profile disciplinary case was instituted against Bantu Holomisa in 1996.

We are not particularly optimistic the ANC will act against Malema in a way that will send a clear message it will not tolerate behaviour that undermines the process of reconciliation in this country; its efforts to promote a lasting peace in Zimbabwe, and embarrasses both the party and the country in the eyes of the world, specifically as it prepares to host the World Cup in two months’ time.

If it does not deal firmly with the unhealthy tendencies displayed by Malema publicly, it will be but a matter of time before he resurfaces to sow further division and create further harm. What is worse, his example will be followed by others who realise that the divisions within its ranks have rendered the ANC a toothless bulldog.