* Malema plans appeal and staying in office
* Malema’s ouster would benefit President Zuma
By Cosmas Butunyi
JOHANNESBURG, March 5 (Reuters) – South African
political rebel Julius Malema will appeal a decision to suspend
him from the ruling ANC, saying he is being persecuted for his
calls to nationalise mines and seize white-owned farm land, his
Youth League said on Monday.
The African National Congress last week decided to expel
Malema, the leader of its youth wing, for violating party rules,
causing rifts in the group and bringing the movement into
disrepute.
Members of the influential Youth League shot back at their
parent organisation on Monday, in a widening rift between party
head President Jacob Zuma and the more radical youth movement.
“The ANC Youth League will never agree that its leadership
be subjected to unfair and unjust treatment or banished for
narrow political purposes,” its said in a statement read at a
news conference by its deputy president, Ronald Lamola.
Malema, dressed in a T-shirt, sunglasses and what his league
describes as a “revolutionary beret”, was present but kept
silent through the briefing.
Malema, one of the party’s best orators whose calls for
radical transformation of Africa’s biggest economy resonated
with poor blacks, has increasingly criticised Zuma.
Continued…
