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(NEWZIMBABWE) Mugabe must hand-over power: Malema

Mugabe must hand-over power: Malema
by Staff Reporter
28/08/2010 00:00:00

THE powerful leader of the young wing of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has railed against “permanent leaders” as he called on Zimbabwe’ President Robert Mugabe to “hand over to young chaps”. And speaking at the ANC Youth League’s annual convention in Midrand on Friday, Malema also warned ANC leaders they could be removed at any time.

"In as much as we support the revolutionary programme in Zimbabwe,” Malema said, “President Mugabe must hand over to those young chaps so that we engage with [them] on the same level. We will never agree with permanent leadership.”

Malema visited Zimbabwe earlier this year and met Mugabe. He used the trip to attack Zimbabwe’s opposition parties, saying they would “never find friendship” in the ANC.

A key proponent of the nationalisation of mines and land reforms, inspiration of which he found in Zimbabwe, Malema however insists leaders must respect popular will.

"You must be careful, you'll be on the streets if you don't respect the power of the masses," Malema told Youth League delegates at the convention where he received an emphatic new mandate.

"Sometimes power makes you drunk."

Malema has pointedly refused to give President Jacob Zuma his backing ahead of an ANC congress in 2012 at which the Youth League is also plotting the ouster of the party’s secretary general Gwede Mantashe and replace him with Fikile Mbalula, a past leader of the League.

“Permanent leaders or old horses refusing to leave are not welcome,” Malema said. “To lead is a privilege not a right. We are the future; we want to inherit the ANC which is intact."

Malema told delegates that they must constitute over 70% of the ANC’s mid-term policy gathering in Durban where the League hopes to add impetus to the land redistribution agenda as well as the nationalisation of mines push.
“You must be guaranteed that everything we discuss here will be adopted by the ANC," he said.

"We are going to take land back... but we will compensate ... that compensation will be determined by the state and not the owner. The willing-buyer willing-seller principle is not working, One needs money to buy land, leading to it being owned by foreigners, because they have the money to do so.”

The ANCYL’s push for the nationalisation of the mines emanated from the Freedom Charter, which states “land shall be shared among those who work it”.

Malema was disciplined by the ANC earlier this year following his Zimbabwe trip after the party said he had publicly criticised Zuma and compromised his mediation efforts in Zimbabwe with his public support for Mugabe’s Zanu PF.

Ironically, Zuma’s deputy Kgalema Motlanthe – seen as the only leader safe at the 2012 congress – was the Youth League’s guest of honour at the Congress. He got a rousing reception as he described the League as a “good problem”.
A "hyperactive" Youth League was better than a passive one, he said Friday.

Labels: JULIUS MALEMA, LAND REFORM, ROBERT MUGABE

posted by MrK @ 5:46 PM