The leader of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) Julius Malema is unlikely to gain enough support to pass nationalisation as ANC policy at the ruling party’s national conference in December next year, political analyst Justice Malala said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a business breakfast in Johannesburg, Malala said that the youth league leader needed majority support in all nine provinces to pass the nationalisation of mines and banks as policy. “Julius probably has Limpopo, but the majority support will remain with what Jacob Zuma says in all the other provinces,” he predicted.

Malala also said that big trade unions and the military veterans were not in favour of nationalisation, as these parties realise that such a policy would probably lead to a reduction in jobs.

However, he warned that Malema would continue to make “a lot of noise” over the next 18 months, which could negatively impact on investment in South Africa.

Also speaking at the event, former Anglo American executive and strategist Clem Sunter pointed out that South Africa had already fallen from 44th to the 52nd position in the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness ranking, owing to policy uncertainties, such as nationalisation and land grabs.

Sunter noted that if these issues were not addressed, South Africa, which is currently the world’s 32nd biggest economy, could drop from the premier league to the second division of countries, while Nigeria would grab the top spot in Africa.

Both speakers suggested that another Codesa (Convention for a Democratic South Africa) would be an appropriate way to deal with some of the policy issues currently on the table.

Many believe that the debate around nationalisation is fuelled by the failure of broad-based black economic empowerment in the country and/or the failure to spread the wealth of the country’s resources to everyone.

“Capitalism is indeed not a good system to promote the spread of assets, but I think a better way to go than nationalisation is through employee share schemes and other similar initiatives,” said Sunter.

“Nationalisation of South Africa’s mines would cost the country R1.9-trillion if mining companies were to be compensated, if companies were not compensated for their assets it would again lead to sanctions against South Africa,” said Malala.

He added that nationalisation without compensation and land grabs would go against South Africa’s Constitution, which means that the ruling party would have to change the Constitution.

In line with South African law, the ruling party can only change the Constitution if it has more than two-thirds of votes. The ANC had achieved this previously, but has gradually seen support for opposition parties grow, and Malala believed that the ANC could see support fall below 60% by the next elections in 2014. Consequently, the Constitution would have to remain in place.