Malema: Guilty as charged
2012-02-04 15:18
Guilty as charged.
This was the verdict of the ANC’s appeals committee in the case of Julius Malema and his top four lieutenants, announced at Luthuli House today.
The National Disciplinary Committee of Appeal (NDCA), led by ANC NEC member Cyril Ramaphosa, told journalists that all the charges against Malema are being upheld.
The decision was communicated to the youth league shortly before making it public, he said.
Malema’s only reprieve is that he will be able to go back to the ruling party’s disciplinary committee and ask for a lesser sentence.
But this is a political gamble, because the ANC may then appeal for a harsher sentence, which may increase the number of years that Malema will be suspended from the ANC.
The disciplinary committee suspended him for five years, but he can technically now be kicked out of the ANC straight away because he was threatened with suspension in 2010 as well.
At the time, the disciplinary committee told Malema if he was to be found guilty again within the following two years he would be kicked out of the ANC.
This time around Malema was charged with sowing divisions for comparing president Jacob Zuma to former president Thabo Mbeki as well as for propagating regime-change in Botswana, both of which go against the constitution of the ANC.
The only charge that was dropped by the appeals committee was a minor one – when Malema and his co-leaders in the ANC Youth League top five barged into a meeting of the ANC’s top six officials.
Ramaphosa said there was no evidence they did this “deliberately”.
He said that Malema and his team will have two weeks to prepare arguments to present their case to the National Disciplinary Committee (NDC).
In his statement Ramaphosa had harsh words for Malema’s appeal attempt. Using words like “ridiculous” and “absurd” to describe Malema’s grounds for appeal, Ramaphosa made it clear his committee had little regard for Malema’s complaints. A separate charge against the ANCYL secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa was upheld. Magaqa publicly insulted former ANCYL president and current minister of public enterprises Malusi Gigaba.
The charge against Malema’s right-hand man, Floyd Shivambu, was also upheld – he insulted a journalist by telling him to “f*** off”.
- City Press