Behind the weekend's defiant show of unity by the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), the ruthless control by expelled president Julius Malema continues to crumble.

The ANC National Disciplinary Committee (NDC) last week (29 February 2012) expelled Malema from the party, after accepting evidence in aggravation of sentence. Malema has until next week to lodge an appeal with the ANC National Disciplinary Committee of Appeals.

He has little prospect of success. The defiant response by an emergency youth league National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting at the weekend was Malema's last, desperate attempt to generate enough of a crisis to force the ANC leadership to intervene in the disciplinary process. The ANC's decision to charge Malema last year for bringing the organisation into disrepute has exposed deepening divisions within the youth league.

To achieve the weekend appearance of unity, Malema has been forced to purge critics within youth league ranks, among them two Provincial Executive Committees (PECs) and appointloyalist interim replacements.

But his weakening grip on power was graphically demonstrated by his failure to win an NEC vote to remove Malema's major challenger, youth league treasurer general Pule Mabe, from his post.

Deputy president Ronald Lamola is constitutionally entitled to take over from Malema, but Mabe argues his seniority should see him succeed Malema. Furious Malema supporters have accused Mabe of abandoning Malema and engaging in a behind-the-scenes campaign to replace him.

The issue came to a head at the weekend meeting with a motion of no confidence in Mabe - defeated by 16 votes to 13.

The defeat is decisive for Malema, who delegates say was "caught off guard" by the outcome. It sharply demonstrates Malema's declining political fortunes: it is the first time since his battle with the parent-body, the ANC, began that Malema has been unable to win unanimous support from the youth league NEC. Significantly, Gauteng and Eastern Cape provincial delegates to the NEC meeting also voted in favour of retaining Mabe.

The defeat came despite Malema's replacement of the youth league's Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal PECs with interim structures after they had refused to back him against the ANC. In both provinces the ANC continues to relate to the elected PECs which retain control over youth league branches, rather than the loyalist structures imposed by Malema.

And early this year Malema abruptly cancelled the Western Cape's youth league provincial conference, to prevent his supporters losing conference elections.

A further illustration of his growing isolation was the failure of ANC NEC member and long-time supporter Tony Yengeni to keep his appointment to testify before the ANC NDC in mitigation of Malema's sentence. Yengeni is a close ally of Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula, aspirant successor with youth league backing of ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe.

A second supporter, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, testified in Malema's defence. But after the NDC ruling he told journalists "no one was bigger than the ANC" - code for acceptance that Malema had gambled and lost.

Malema is reportedly furious at what he regards as a betrayal of senior ANC leaders who supported him overtly and covertly in his political project to prevent President Jacob Zuma securing a second ANC presidential term in elections in December.

While Malema has been using the last few days to try and regroup and project that he is on the comeback trail, time is against him as his fate is decided by the ANC NDCA to which he will one last time go to argue that he has been unfairly treated.Malema and his co-accused have 14 days in which to lodge an appeal, but it is unlikely that the NDCA under the leadership of Cyril Ramaphosa will soften the sentence.

The prospects are equally thin for Malema's last-ditch attempt to precipitate a crisis by setting a united youth league against its ANC parent, thus creating conditions for a negotiated "political solution".The ANC leadership is unlikely to consider this: any negotiations with the youth league on Malema's sentence would have the ANC leadership effectively bypassing the party constitution, and undermining both the NDC and NDCA, the party structures constitutionally mandated to deal with disciplinary matters once charges have been laid.

Malema and co-accused secretary general Sindiso Magaqa and spokesperson Floyd Shivambuhave already failed in an earlier attempt to persuade senior ANC officials to deal with the charges outside of the disciplinary process; the ANC leadership referred the issue back to the NDC.

And even if Malema were able to hold the youth league together sufficiently to stand by its threat to defy his expulsion, the outcome is unlikely to help him. When the youth league could not elect a new leadership in 2008, the ANC took over the running of the league. A similar move in response to youth league defiance would bring the many victims of Malema's purges back into the fold, ready to contest for the leadership. It would also put Mantashe in day-to-day authority over the league - making it virtually impossible for them to mobilise, either in favour of Mbalula to replace Mantashe or Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe to replace Zuma.

The next few weeks may well see a more volatile and vocal Malema. But the reality is that he is inexorably losing the league and, unable to deliver for his allies in the ANC itself, he is without a political home. By the time law enforcement agencies act on their investigations into his allegedly improper business dealings, he will already be in the political wilderness.