NUM nails Malema for his playboy lifestyle

More daggers were drawn against suspended ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema yesterday as the National Union of Mineworkers backed President Jacob Zuma in the ruling party's leadership battles.

Malema was found guilty of bringing the ANC into disrepute and suspended from membership of the party for five years last week.

NUM general secretary Frans Baleni laid into him for leading an opulent lifestyle and "pretending" to be fighting for the poor.

He lashed Malema for organising his "economic freedom" protest last month, in which thousands of young people marched from Beyers Naude Square, in central Johannesburg, to the Chamber of Mines, and to the JSE stock exchange in Sandton, and the Union Buildings, in Pretoria.

"There are people located within the working class, but by behaviour and conduct, and what they have accumulated, they are not working class. We must move away from demagogic tendencies. Can you imagine Patrice Motsepe marching , saying he is demanding RDP houses for the poor while he lives in big houses and drives the most expensive cars?

"Working class, your future is in your hands; don't be misled," said Baleni.

The NUM and other unions are expected to take sides in the ANC leadership struggle as the ANC prepares for its elective conference in December next year.

The youth league is believed to be plotting to replace Zuma with Deputy-President Kgalema Motlanthe, and the party's secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, with Sports and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula.

Baleni decried "angry politics" within the ANC-led tripartite alliance.

"The [union's] national executive committee noted with serious concern the continued polarisation of relations among alliance partners and the need for decisive intervention by the ANC, as leader of the alliance, to stamp out divisive elements within the ranks.

"The [committee] further appealed to both Cosatu and the SACP to work harder towards unifying the parties behind the alliance programme and desist from public postures in addressing what are largely internal matters."

Baleni said democracy had failed South Africans.

"We have 8million unemployed; it means procedural democracy has failed to deliver a better life."