INLSA
Young communist League national secretary Buti Manamela. Picture: Bongiwe Mchunu
Durban – Young Communist League national secretary Buti Manamela has challenged outspoken DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko to a public debate, in what has been seen as an attempt by the ANC to fill the “vacuum” left by Julius Malema, who countered the official opposition’s every move.
Manamela’s call appears to be a strategic shift by the ruling party to capture the hearts and souls of first-time voters ahead of next year’s elections and match the DA’s effective public campaigning.
But Mazibuko, who has been a thorn in the side of the ANC and President Jacob Zuma, declined the offer and instead referred Manamela to DA youth leader Mbali Ntuli – effectively suggesting that the ANC MP was too junior to debate with her.
Ntuli said she was ready to take on Manamela.
“We have always been willing to debate other youth organisations on issues important to young South Africans. In addition, I will add to the debate agenda our concerns with the watering down of the Youth Wage Subsidy, and how the government’s new Youth Employment Accord totally undermines the fight against youth unemployment,” said Ntuli.
Manamela’s call comes against the backdrop of refusal by various tripartite alliance leaders since 2004 to debate with DA leaders such as Helen Zille, her predecessor, Tony Leon, and Mazibuko.
Young communist League national secretary Buti Manamela has challenged outspoken DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko to a public debate. File photo: Matthew Jordaan
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This includes President Jacob Zuma, Thabo Mbeki and former ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.
In the run-up to the 2011 local government elections, Malema caused a stir when he refused to debate with Mazibuko because she was a “nobody, she’s a tea girl of the madam (Zille)”, prompting Mazibuko to dismiss him as “shocking and ridiculous”.
In 2004, Mbeki refused to debate with Leon in what former DA spokesman Douglas Gibson claimed was a sign of Mbeki’s growing arrogance.
Manamela’s challenge was made in the form of a letter handed to Mazibuko, following the DA’s controversial “Know Your DA” campaign which has angered the ANC.
The campaign included separate pamphlets showing Nelson Mandela and Helen Suzman embracing and images of the ANC flag juxtaposed with an old apartheid-era flag.
The ANC dismissed the pamphlets as an attempt to “distort the history of our people’s struggle for liberation and its mischievous comparison of the ANC and apartheid”.
Manamela said should Mazibuko “respectfully decline and deem the task to debate him too burdensome”, he would be willing to debate with Zille.
Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said Manamela’s challenge to Mazibuko was part of a wider strategy by the ruling party to match the DA’s use of the public space, especially by its influential young leaders such as Mazibuko and party spokesman Mmusi Maimane.
This could be “an expression of a shift” in the ANC to deal with “misconceptions” about the party, as well as an attempt to fill a void left by Malema after his expulsion last year.
Malema, said Mathekga, had left a void in the ruling party irrespective of whether or not the current leadership agreed with his political agenda.
“It does not matter the content of what he was saying, we could disagree with the content of his vision of his ideas, but the fact remains that he has left a vacuum that individuals such as Buti Manamela want to occupy and put a different content into that space,” said Mathekga.
He added that Manamela’s call could have been encouraged by SACP general-secretary Blade Mzimande, who “likes to taken on the DA directly or indirectly”.
Political Bureau
