The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in the Eastern Cape has taken a resolution to lobby for former league president Fikile Mbalula to replace Gwede Mantashe as ANC secretary-general.

Newly-elected ANCYL Eastern Cape chairperson Ayanda Matiti said that the province would drum up support for Mbalula at the league's national general council (NGC) in Midrand this week.

Matiti's pronouncement echoed that of league president Julius Malema, who wanted Mantashe replaced by Mbalula, currently the ANC's head of campaigns. Mbalula is also a national executive committee member and a national working committee member.

ANC president Jacob Zuma recently reaffirmed a September 2009 decision taken by the ANC's national executive committee that there was "no political basis for a succession debate for 2012".

"We affirmed that the ANC structures, at an appropriate time, would have an opportunity to discuss and express their preferences.

"We further affirmed that, anything to the contrary was a recipe for disunity, labelling, factionalism and erosion of organisational culture and traditions," Zuma wrote in a March 2010, letter from the President.

Matiti, however, said that the province had pronounced on the matter at the weekend in order to take the resolution forward. It would be too late to wait until the ANCYL's national conference next year to do so.

"We know that people behind the scenes are lobbying already... even when we supported the current ANC leadership, we pronounced on it in January 2005 and that conference happened in 2007," he said.

He said that a further resolution was taken by the province to support ANCYL president Julius Malema to lead the league for a second term, and to support the ANCYL's policy discussion document on the nationalisation of the country's mines.

The league's Eastern Cape chapter wants the ANC's provincial executive committee to be disbanded and will present its reasons to the NGC this week.

Malema, at the Eastern Cape conference, reportedly criticised South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande for accusing him of dividing the ANC's youth chapter. Mantashe is also SACP chairperson.

The Dispatch Online quoted Malema as saying that the 2012 ANC national congress was about "generational mix", and voiced his support for Mbalula.

He said that the ANCYL would not be "disturbed by its detractors when it expressed itself on the succession debate", according to the report.

"We are talking about our future. We don't need your permission to determine our future.

"If you question Mbalula, and say he is young and does not qualify, why did you elect him to the national executive committee?"