Independent Newspapers
Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula has been publicly supported at a press conference of the province’s interim ANC Youth League structure as someone who should remain in the cabinet after next year’s elections. File photo: Bongiwe Mchunu
Durban – Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula has been publicly supported at a press conference of KwaZulu-Natal’s interim ANC Youth League structure as someone who should remain in the cabinet after next year’s elections.
The pro-President Jacob Zuma provincial task team, formed to reconstruct the disbanded youth league leadership, released a list of 12 names of former leaders it wants in the cabinet and as MPs, in Durban on Wednesday.
There is also a list of 16 it wants in the provincial legislature.
Getting the thumbs up are Zuma’s former spokesman, Zizi Kodwa, former youth league treasurer Pule Mabe, Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa and Minister of Public Enterprises Malusi Gigaba.
“Our mission as the ANCYL is to look at the generation before us and ahead of us,” task team convener Nomtembeko Boyce said.
Before the ANC national conference in Mangaung in December, Mbalula, a former youth league president, backed the league, then led by Julius Malema, in a “Forces of Change” campaign to oust Zuma and replace him with the party’s then-deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe.
eThekwini task team member, Sthembiso Mshengu, whose name is on the league’s wish list for Parliament, said that the interim structure had not decided which of those on its provincial list should be MECs and which MPLs.
Boyce said regional task teams had been told to fast-track the reformation of regional league structures to prepare for the league’s provincial conference in February. The national conference would be in December next year.
The task team was also given the responsibility of recruiting young white, coloured and Indian people.
Boyce said the ANC was concerned about the lack of white youths in the party. “Their parents were part of the Struggle, but we don’t see them participating in the organisation. Maybe we have somehow alienated them. We cannot build this country if we are not united. Without them we cannot succeed.”
The Mercury
