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Under fire ANC Youth League (ANCYL) president Collen Maine was allegedly left horribly embarrassed when leaders of the mother body rejected his request to postpone the youth league’s much-awaited national conference until next year.
The conference, which was scheduled to take place this month, was postponed once again amid allegations that tensions in the youth league had spilt over at Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters in Johannesburg, when Maine and youth league secretary-general Njabulo Nzuza faced off with each other last week.
City Press has learnt that Maine told the ANC national executive committee (NEC) ordinary meeting – held at the Saint George Hotel in Irene, outside Pretoria, last weekend – that the youth league was highly divided and would be unable to organise a “credible” conference to elect new leaders.
Sources with intimate knowledge of the matter told City Press that the NEC rejected Maine’s request. Instead, it resolved that a task team be established to help the league prepare for the conference.
However, ANCYL provincial leaders accused Maine of deliberately delaying the conference.
ANCYL Gauteng chairperson Matome Chiloane said Maine had lost his ability to lead the youth league.
“I will raise the issue in the NEC. He has lost the capacity to take us to the conference. He must resign,” Chiloane said.
ANCYL Mpumalanga secretary Pholoso Mbatsane said Maine had passed a motion of no confidence in himself.
“As the president, he should have ensured that the youth league was ready to have a credible conference. The fact that the ANC saw fit to intervene is an indication that he has failed to lead. He should not drag all of us into his failures,” Mbatsane said.
Maine was once a close ally of former ANC North West chairperson Supra Mahumapelo and former president Jacob Zuma.
The youth league under his leadership backed Minister in the Presidency Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s failed bid to be the ANC leader at the party’s national conference in Nasrec, south of Johannesburg, last year.
In what appears to be a veiled attack on Maine, Nzuza said attempts to disband the youth league had failed.
“We still run our own affairs. The task team that has been sent is an ordinary team,” Nzuza said.
The ANC announced a task team this week that would help the youth league prepare for its conference. The team includes North West secretary Dakota Legoete, ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule and former youth league leaders Zizi Kodwa and Ronald Lamola.
READ: ANC plot moves to the youth league
Nzuza said the ANC had mandated the youth league to hold its conference before the end of this year.
Meanwhile, according to a youth league member, a showdown is said to have taken place in one of the boardrooms when Legoete, the ANC NEC’s organising and campaigns subcommittee deputy chair, summoned the two leaders to account to branches from the Johannesburg region who had gone to headquarters to demand branch files.
The member told City Press that on their arrival at Luthuli House, their files could not be located and they were then attended to by Legoete.
“We were then called to the boardroom, and the president and the secretary-general were called. The president said it is true that the files are in Killarney, which is the operational base of Reggie [Nkabinde, ANCYL treasurer-general] and Nzuza. Collen was distancing himself from Nzuza because he was misrepresenting the matter, saying there was no problem. But Collen was saying the branches are not wrong; there is a serious administrative issue in this office and the secretary-general must account,” the member said.
The members from 16 zones in Johannesburg are demanding that Nzuza give the green light for them to go ahead with their regional conference. The region has been run by a task team for two years now.
“We went to Luthuli House because we wanted to get the attention of the ANC leadership. These guys know they are losing the national congress, which was supposed to sit this month, so they are holding the organisation to ransom. Nzuza is withholding files because they know they are losing the conference. Those files have all the information of the branches,” a member said.
Youth league leaders sympathetic to Nzuza and Nkabinde said this week that they believed that Maine was behind the zones showing up at headquarters.
Maine is believed to be backing ANCYL KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo to succeed him as the youth league leader, while Nzuza prefers Nkabinde.
