At the league's national working committee meeting on Tuesday, Malema's most recent suspension was discussed after party officials told the meeting why he could not attend it.
According to people at the meeting, some committee members raised their concern that they had endorsed Malema's presidency to 2014, before his recent suspension, and felt that the league's national executive committee had to ratify the decision to expel him.
Leaders supportive of Malema wanted the working committee to pronounce its support for him, but they were defeated and the matter was referred to the executive committee meeting on Sunday.
At Tuesday's meeting it was agreed that the league would abide by the decision of the ANC to suspend Malema, and its stricture that he be prohibited from being party to court action against the ANC, those who attended the meeting said.
The Times understands that league secretary Sandiso Magaqa and spokesman Floyd Shivambu came under fire for, respectively, attacking the Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans' Association, and for saying that President Jacob Zuma would not be re-elected as ANC president.
The view was expressed that they should apologise.
Shivambu and Magaqa could not be reached for comment.
Today, Malema is to appear before the ANC appeals committee, chaired by Cyril Ramaphosa, to say why the disciplinary committee's decision to expel him from the ANC should be set aside.
Malema's supporters in Limpopo will be put to the test at the weekend when the faction that is behind him comes up against his opponents at the league's elective conference.
A Malema faction is fighting to retain Jacob Lebogo as league secretary in the province, whereas detractors want him replaced by Eddie Maleka.
Maleka broke ranks after the Peter Mokaba region, of which he was secretary, was disbanded last year.
He has formed a pact with Boy Mamabolo, another friend-turned-foe of Malema, who is also chairman of the league in the Milo Malatji branch in Seshego.
Mamabolo has threatened to conduct a parallel election, following threats that they might not be allowed inside the conference venue.
"We are going to attend the conference of dictators, failing which we have a Plan B to conduct a parallel conference to elect our own leaders," vowed Mamabolo yesterday.
Lebogo said they hoped the conference would be "incident-free".
"We are currently holding meetings in all regions to deal with issues of pre-registration and finalising certain logistics of the conference," he said.
The Sekhukhune youth league general council has criticised the ANC leadership's treatment of Malema.
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