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The ANC Youth League is terrified by ANC President`s disregard of ANC internal NDCA process and pre-emptive utterances about the outcomes of the NDCA

The African National Congress Youth League is terrified and totally shocked by utterances of the ANC President Jacob Zuma about the ongoing disciplinary hearing process of the ANC, wherein the leadership of the ANC YL is charged by ANC Officials. In this particular disciplinary process, ANC Officials which include President Jacob Zuma are complainants against the leadership of the ANC YL, and their complaints are not conclusive, and no sanction is final until the entire process, including appeal has been concluded.

In the interview done with the New Age Newspaper, President Zuma said "Once the process of disciplinary procedures has been concluded there will not be anything else to do thereafter - the youth league will have to move forward". President Zuma further said "the ANC Youth League will have to have a new president that will be able to move the organisation forward, I don`t think it`s a crisis". In saying this, President Zuma is opening a succession debate in the ANC Youth League, whose Congress is in 2014, yet succession debate and the question of who should succeed the current leadership of the ANC, whose Conference is 8 months away is banned.

ANC President Zuma`s utterances are not only shocking, but undermine the ANC disciplinary process, whose integrity and fairness is already under question. President Zuma`s proclamation that the ANC YL will have to have a new President is a premature expulsion of ANC YL President even before the NDCA could listen to evidence on whether the sanction of the NDC is sound. As a President of the ANC and country, President Zuma is unduly influencing the members of the NDCA to come to a conclusion which he has already announced publicly. It is apparent that the decision to expel the leadership of the ANC YL was taken at The New Age breakfast.

Throughout our arguments, we maintained that the institution of disciplinary proceedings against the leadership of the ANC Youth League was not meant to achieve discipline, but to settle political scores and suppress political dissent, which the ANC Constitution says should never be done. President`s Zuma`s utterances are a confirmation that the decision to suspend and expel leaders of the ANC Youth League is not taken by the relevant disciplinary structures of the ANC, but by comrades who say they are complainants, whilst they are in fact adjudicators of the political future and standing of leaders of the ANC Youth League.

In light of the President`s utterances, the ANC YL will consult with relevant structures of the movement and other officials of the ANC to determine whether we should go ahead with the NDCA process when the President of the ANC has already announced its outcomes. The ANC YL will never falter on principles of the organization, and will not allow any member of the ANC to openly undermine structures and processes of the organization. We call on the leadership of the ANC to express a view on how we move forward, because judgment has been issued on a process we thought has not begun.