EMBATTLED ANC youth league president Julius Malema has urged ANC branches to start mobilising for the national conference in Mangaung in December.

Malema is associated with a campaign to oust President Jacob Zuma at the party's elective conference.

Delivering the Ephraim Mogale memorial lecture yesterday to a small crowd in Moutse, Limpopo, Malema said: "We are going to Mangaung and we're not going to play there.

"We are going to reclaim the ANC."

He criticised the national cabinet decision - endorsed by Zuma - to place five Limpopo departments under national administration. He hinted that the decision was driven by politics to sideline certain groups ahead of Mangaung.

Premier Cassel Mathale, Malema's ally, recently criticised Zuma's administration for its handling of the intervention saga.

Malema said the recent ANC provincial conference held at the University of Limpopo, outside Polokwane, "proved them wrong".

At the conference Mathale was re-elected ANC provincial chairman.

"They took over the government thinking that state power would be used to win at the conference.

"There was a win with or without state power," said Malema.

Malema also mocked the complaints sent to the ANC national office about apparent rigging of votes at the conference.