Dictatorship on the way, says Malema

EXPELLED ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has warned that dictatorship is creeping into the ANC, and the country runs the risk of becoming a police state.

Malema made the assertion when he addressed the league's cadre forum in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, on Friday night.

"We are building a police state. You can't talk in your car, you can't talk in your house, you can't talk on your cellphone ... because you are not sure whether this person is being watched," he said.

"The fear that is coming, creeping in slowly into the organisation, will lead this organisation into dictatorship ... the day the state machinery is used to settle political scores, that's an invitation for dictatorship."

Malema, who has appealed against his expulsion from the ANC, said a climate of fear was becoming palpable within the party, because those in power were using the state's security apparatus to fight political battles ahead of the national conference in Mangaung in December.

Before Malema's address, pandemonium broke out when security guards were instructed to eject an anti-Malema grouping from the hall.

The anti-Malema group, led by land rights activist Braam Hanekom, entered the hall carrying a banner that read, "We stand by the NDCA (national disciplinary committee of appeals) ruling" - a reference to the decision to expel Malema.

A fuming Hanekom said the behaviour of the pro-Malema group was evidence that they were intolerant of dissent.

"I have been thrown out of this meeting for expressing my views. That is not democracy," he said.

Back inside the venue, Malema supporters sang the latest anti-Zuma song, "uMsholozi uyay'shiya lendawo, uKgalema uyay'thatha lendawo" (Msholozi is vacating the seat and Kgalema is taking over), while they continued to mock the ANC president by putting their hands over their heads to depict a shower head. Malema joined in the singing but did not make gestures.

The suspended youth league leader took pot shots at Zuma's instruction, issued at the national general council of the ANC in 2010, when he said junior members of the party should respect their senior counterparts.

"The story that juniors must respect their seniors is not the principle of the ANC. The principle of the ANC is that the decisions of the highest structure are binding on lower structures.

"People should win us through ideas. You will never find respect in a lucky packet; you earn it through how you conduct yourself both in political and in personal life," said Malema.