A showdown is looming between energy minister and ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe and the youth league ahead of the party’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting this weekend.
The firebrand ANC Youth League (ANCYL) is on a collision course with Mantashe over his comments at the weekend that the young lions' demands for a 50% representation in parliament will not happen.
The league has previously said that parliament, provincial legislatures and councils have become retirement villages for old people. It demanded that young people should make up the majority of public representatives.
The league’s president, Collen Malatji, told TimesLIVE Premium that Mantashe’s comments were “unfortunate” and that he was merely speaking for himself as his views did not represent those of ANC branches. He said the branches were nominating young people to go to parliament and provincial legislatures in the ongoing process of nominating ANC public representatives ahead of the 2024 national elections.
We were shocked, all of us as the youth league, on the issues that he has raised and that’s why we say we will engage him on Saturday. He must tell us what informed these statements
— Collen Malatji, ANCYL president
Malatji said Mantashe will have to explain himself when they meet on Saturday on the sidelines of the NEC meeting.
“Gwede was speaking on his own behalf. The ANC is pro-youth, the ANC wants young people to be in parliament, so he was not speaking for the ANC,” said Malatji.
“It’s unfortunate that statement but the ANC agree that young people must be in positions of power — that’s why they are nominating them everywhere in the country. We are not asking for a favour, it’s what branches of the ANC are saying. They are saying they want youth to take over and be the majority in parliament.”
Malatji was reacting to comments Mantashe made during the Eastern Cape leg of the ANC’s 2019 manifesto review in which he said as much as the youth must be represented, they will not take over the list of representatives.
Mantashe said: “They know that the youth takeover will not happen; rather, they say generation mix, not takeover. We are the elders, and we are in charge.”
This has irked the young lions, especially the minister's comments that they are in a hurry to “go eat” in parliament.
“The unfortunate one is the 50/50 when he says the youth is going there in parliament because they want to eat, I don’t know if there is something to be eaten there that old people are eating but we are there in the cuddles of power because we want to be in policy positions to benefit the youth,” said Malatji.
“Now, if you’re saying people are eating there in parliament, we don’t know who is eating — but we know parliament as a platform of power to influence policy positions.”
Malatji said they are particularly perturbed by Mantashe’s comments, whom he described as the best performing minister, as he had previously advocated the same issues as the youth.
“We will engage him because Gwede is one of the best performing ministers, I think what he raised is unfortunate. Among those old ministers, he’s one of the best-performing and he’s also new in parliament, like all of us, because he just arrived in 2019. He’s new, he’s got the same experience as me,” he said.
“Look, that's why I’m saying those are unfortunate statements, but in most cases Mantashe is on the side of our views. We were shocked, all of us as the youth league, on the issues that he has raised and that’s why we say we will engage him on Saturday. He must tell us what informed these statements.”
Malatji said they were not in a clash with either the ANC or Mantashe by raising these issues but they believed it was high time the ANC deployed younger leaders.
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