Cape league in show of support for Malema

The ANC appeals committee has started working on Julius Malema's appeal against his five-year suspension and axing as ANC Youth League president recently handed down by the party's national disciplinary committee.

ANC spokesman Keith Khoza said yesterday that the committee, headed by Cyril Ramaphosa, former justice minister Brigitte Mabandla, Minister of Planning in the Presidency Trevor Manuel, Minister of Justice Jeff Radebe and former ANC spokesman Jesse Duarte, had "started working".

"I know they have met already, but not yet with Malema," Khoza said adding that it was not known when the committee would call Malema.

He said the committee would release a statement after finalising Malema's appeal.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Malema is quoted as saying that he was finished in politics and ready to become a cattle farmer.

But, the report said, he had vowed not to go "without putting up a fight".

Cracks emerged in the league at the weekend with the executive of the league in Eastern Cape disbanding its Nelson Mandela Bay region because of "bogus branches" set up to swell numbers ahead of an elective congress.

On Friday, three members of the league's Mpumalanga executive committee were suspended, and provincial secretary Johan Mkhatshwa was axed. A league member had reportedly said publicly that he "hated Malema".

In Western Cape, four youth league regions put on a show of support for Malema, saying he had the Western Cape league's "unshaken support".

In a statement for the regions, Luvo Makasi, who is in the running for the provincial chairman's job at next month's elective congress, accused the ANC's national disciplinary committee of wanting to "suffocate" anyone with views different to theirs.

He proposed that league members charged by the ANC should not be subject to the ANC's national disciplinary committee but to an internal youth league process.

Makasi called for the ANC to announce exactly when it would open the presidential succession debate, saying the Western Cape regions supported Fikile Mbalula to take over from Gwede Mantashe as ANC secretary-general. They would announce the names of other preferred leaders once the debate was officially opened.

• The four ANC regions gave their support to "fracking" for shale gas in the Karoo.

They also said that, because there were no mines in the province, they wanted to nationalise farms, fisheries, tourism and the "insurance monopoly". They said the benefits of industries should be shared with the communities who work in them.