Young Communists attack ANCYL president's stance on student protests

ANC Youth League president Collen Maine is reducing student struggles into "personal and cheap politicking", the Young Communist League of SA said on Tuesday.

This was in response to Maine blaming the wave of student protests over university fee increases on Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, who is also the general secretary of the SA Communist Party.

"It's quite annoying... for the youth league president to blame everything on the minister of higher education and training," YCL national secretary Mluleki Dlelanga told News24.

"We feel as the YCL, the president of the youth league suffers from the Julius Malema hangover... [who is] inclined to always insult instead of engaging on certain issues."

He said to insult Nzimande was the same as insulting the ANC government.

"[This] is not how we have been taught. He is playing the man instead of playing the ball and he is defining himself outside the discipline of the ANC..."

The protest over an increase in university fees started at the University of Witwatersrand last week.

Since then, students at the universities of Rhodes, Stellenbosch, Cape Town and Fort Hare have joined the cause, barricading entrances to the universities and bringing activities and lectures to a halt.

University of Pretoria was expected to join the protest as well.

Like the ANCYL, the YCL was advocating for free education, Dlelanga said.

'We are dealing with anti-communists'

But, Dlelanga said, Maine did not understand the current problem of student funding in universities and technical training colleges, adding that it was a deeper economic problem caused by a capitalist economy.

However, the YCL believed there was a political motive behind Maine's comments regarding Nzimande.

"They want to isolate the communists towards the ANC 2017 conference and in doing so they now must attack Blade Nzimande and, secondly, they must attack the National Youth Development Agency chair, who happens to be the chairperson of the Young Communist League.

"Now we are dealing with anti-communists... who doesn't care about the outcome all they do is attack."

Dlelanga said the YCL has requested a meeting with ANCYL. A date for this meeting had not been set yet.

This is not the first time the SACP and the ANCYL have butted heads recently.

Earlier this month, there was a war of words between the SACP and the ANCYL in KwaZulu-Natal in relation to the "premier league".

The league's provincial deputy chairperson, Kwazi Mshengu, accused the SACP, which is an ANC alliance partner, of trying to link the so-called "premier league" to the outcomes of the national ANCYL congress.

There have been allegations that Maine was imposed on it by the "premier league".

Source: News24