Published Letter in The Star of 25 January 2023 on Page 8

 Without the Youth, ANC Might as well Quit

They say the ANC is a broad church and tolerates dissent, but the fall of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) tells a different story.

After Julius Malema, Floyd Shivambu and others were suspended from the ANC in 2012 and went on to form the EFF in 2013, the ANC formed a National Task Team (NTT). They held meetings with ANCYL branches around the nation. I was delegated to represent the ANCYL in my ward at one of these meetings at the Randfontein Municipality.

They told us at the meeting their task is to check if the ANCYL was still active and that our membership were legitimate but in fact they were there to check if members were still radical and independent and were asking for expropriation of land without compensation and the provision of free education to empower people with skills and expertise.

The members wanted to be agents to alleviate the root causes of their problems.

Then out of the blue the ANC took the decision to disband the ANCYL and it was to stifle these radical members. Their loss cost the ANC more than a million votes in the 2014 national elections and was felt in the 2016 local elections.

The ANC stubbornly refuses to engage in deliberations with those who dissent and by doing so, it is writing its own obituary.