Not fair! Charge them too, wails Juju

ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu should have been subjected to a disciplinary hearing, if the ANC was fair on discipline.

So says Julius Malema.

"If there was consistency of discipline in the ANC, those who attend and address meetings of the ANC under the influence of alcohol, and some of those who got arrested for drinking and driving, should have been subjected to a disciplinary process and hearing," Malema insists.

Without mentioning him by name, Malema was clearly referring to Mthembu, who was arrested for drunken driving in Cape Town two years ago.

In his address to the youth league's lekgotla in Pretoria on Friday, Malema insisted that the disciplinary proceedings against him were politically motivated.

"There is no consistency of discipline in the ANC," he said.

The ANC's disciplinary committee of appeals, chaired by Cyril Ramaphosa, dismissed appeals by Malema and other youth league officials to overturn their suspension from the party.

Ramaphosa, among others, dismissed the appellants' arguments that the charges had been instituted to settle political scores.

Malema and his officials were given two weeks to prepare arguments in mitigation of sentences and will remain in their positions until the disciplinary process is complete.

"We will never take the ANC to court, irrespective of the unfair treatment we received throughout this hearing.

"Maybe we also did something wrong by calling for integrated generational leadership in the movement," Malema said.

He told the lekgotla that if the ANC had persecuted, suspended, expelled and intimidated former youth league leaders, "the ANC would not be where it is today".

"What leads to a decision to exclude and isolate us from the ANC - for expressing opinions, which the leadership of the ANC disapprove (of)...?" he asked.

He took a swipe at the ANC leadership: "This generation of young activists should appreciate that the revolutionary programme we are pursuing will not be left to some older people who seem to have accepted that the massive wealth inequalities cannot be changed."