By Jon Herskovitz and Tiisetso Motsoeneng
JOHANNESBURG, April 3 (Reuters) – South Africa’s ruling ANC
party on Tuesday harshly reprimanded rebellious Youth League
leader Julius Malema, angrily condemning his assertion that
President Jacob Zuma’s government is a dictatorship.
Still smarting after Malema accused the president of trying
to crush him and the party’s Youth League, the African National
Congress put on a show of unity holding a news conference with
all its six top leaders, including Zuma.
“It is not only disingenuous but a deliberate falsehood,”
Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said of Malema’s comments.
The young firebrand’s slurs on Zuma were “crude”,
“disrespectful”, “incomprehensible” and “insulting,” he added.
On Friday, Malema, who has been formally expelled from the
party pending an appeal, told an ANC-backed rally at Wits
University in Johannesburg: “We have seen under President Zuma
democracy being replaced with dictatorship.”
One of the party’s best orators, Malema has become an
increasingly vocal critic of Zuma, refusing to tone down
rhetoric advocating a radical transformation of Africa’s biggest
economy with the take-over of mines and white-owned farmland.
He was expelled from the party for sowing division in ANC
ranks but the ANC has allowed him to stay in his post and speak
at its major events pending the outcome of an appeal process
that has already lasted several months.
His next appeal hearing will be heard next week. Malema has
said the process has been politically motivated.
Continued…
