Court halts Eastern Cape youth league conference

The High Court in Grahamstown has ruled against the ANC Youth League in the Eastern Cape holding an elective conference and reinstated the province’s executive committee.

According to court papers, Judge Geraldine Beshe set aside the decision taken on June 9 by the ANCYL national working committee to dissolve the province's executive committee, declaring the decision unlawful.

The league also could not hold an elective congress in the province unless it was convened “with the participation of the province's executive committee”.

The ANCYL was ordered to pay costs in the matter.

This was after Eastern Cape chairman Mlibo Qoboshiyane sought the court’s intervention to reinstate the executive committee after it was disbanded by the league’s national leadership.

ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu said in a statement the league disagreed with the judgment and would lodge an appeal.

“The ANC Youth League believes that court actions against the organisation are unacceptable and totally alien to the movement, but responded to court action to avoid unsustainable judgments and misinterpretation of our internal process by the courts,” he said.

The league was a “federal organisation”, was “unitary and bound by principles of democratic centralism”.

“In terms of these principles, decisions of higher structures bind all lower structures,” Shivambu said.

The Eastern Cape executive committee was disbanded after the province failed on two occasions to hold a conference to elect new leadership.

A leadership race was at the centre of this failure with allegations of flawed credentials marring the first attempt.

The battle was between Ayanda Matiti, aligned to ANCYL president Julius Malema, and Mawanda Ndakisa, who backed Malema’s deputy Andile Lungisa.

The race for provincial leadership in the youth league is directly linked to its national elective conference to take place next year.

Malema is reportedly facing fierce competition from Lungisa.

Qoboshiyane could not immediately be reached for comment.