African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema walked out of a South African Communist Party (SACP) conference in Polokwane after being booed by delegates, reports said on Friday.

"I was unhappy with the delegates booing us when we were introduced," he told reporters afterwards, according to The Times newspaper.

"The environment is hostile and not conducive for persuasion because delegates have wrongly perceived ideas about the leadership of the youth league and the ANC.

"You invite people to your conference and then you just boo them and howl at them like that? We were humiliated in front of everybody," said Malema.

He later apparently asked ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, who is also the chairman of the SACP, to address delegates at an open session where the media was allowed.

The Star reported that Mantashe refused, saying Malema could address delegates in a closed session, but soon after it started, Malema stormed out.

He vowed to complain to President Jacob Zuma.

Malema said the delegates were "hostile" and he could not understand how they could boo him and ANC executive member Billy Masetlha, while a Standard Bank executive received a warm welcome.

"This is so shocking: that an alliance partner can be booed and monopoly capital in the form of Standard Bank can receive such a welcome by communists. This is a contradiction."

Malema recently angered the SACP by calling its deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin a "white Messiah" whose permission he did not need to call for the nationalisation of mines.