Horse trading is in full swing as the ANC Youth League prepares to elect new leaders at its national congress next week. Provinces have started aligning around the four presidential candidates.Regions in Gauteng are divided among three of the candidates , the league's former treasurer, Pule Mabe, former deputy president Ronald Lamola and the current Tshwane regional leader, Lesego Makhubela.The fourth candidate is North West MEC for local government Collen Maine.Mabe was offered a political lifeline last week when the mother body, the ANC, cleared him to stand for a leadership position in the youth league, even though he turned 35 in March.The move has caused tensions and there are fears that delegates will raise objections to his candidacy at the congress.Depending on the balance of forces, this could cause the congress to collapse.A provincial leader who spoke on condition of anonymity said there was a perception that Mabe was being imposed on the league by the ANC."There is no way delegates will accept a situation where the mother body wants to tell us who should lead us. We will not challenge the ANC publicly but we will oppose that at the congress," he said.Lamola, who relocated to Gauteng after he was alienated from his home province, Mpumalanga, has the support of most provinces.His lobbying team has been holding secret caucuses with KwaZulu- Natal, Free State, Limpopo and Northern Cape delegates and is said to have assured all provinces a place in the top five leadership positions should they support him.There are indications that some delegates in Mpumalanga will still vote for him.Some regions in North West could also rally behind Lamola as his slate includes the deputy chairman of the National Youth Development Agency, Kenny Morolong.North West has nominated Maine as its preferred presidential candidate and is banking heavily on Mpumalanga to support its bid, in return for the position of deputy president. Mpumalanga has nominated its chairman, Desmond Moela, as deputy president.Makhubela - who was initially on the Mabe slate as a deputy president candidate - has support only in parts of Gauteng and he could be lobbied to back any of the other candidates in exchange for another position.Since the expulsion of Julius Malema in 2012, the ANC has struggled to rally young people into its ranks and behind party programmes...