Youth leader Julius Malema was finally expelled from South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) late on Tuesday evening (24 April 2012).

His defeat, less than a year after he swept into a second term as youth league president on 16 June 2011, appears complete.

He is without a political home and, following several months’ of investigation into his business activities, must pay R10-million (US$1,29-million) in back-taxes, and could face criminal prosecution. His plans to maintain influence over the ANC Youth League even after his expulsion have been thwarted.

Most crucially, the political project he fronted to unseat President Jacob Zuma at the ANC’s December elective conference is badly – possibly fatally – damaged. His campaign to have Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe installed in place of Zuma, and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula replacing ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe, has derailed. It is without either a candidate to contest the presidency or the broad alliance necessary to block a second Zuma term.

Malema’s attempt to capture the presidency was always a high-risk project, involving increasingly brazen criticism of Zuma’s administration and adoption of policies – many of them directly conflicting with existing ANC policies – proposed to win support for a broad anti-Zuma coalition. The plan was to be a carbon-copy of the coalition that ousted President Thabo Mbeki in 2007. But he failed to draw in significant support from either of the ANC’s formal Tripartite Alliance partners, the Cosatu trade union federation and the South African Communist Party (SACP) – without whose support the project had little prospect.

They were, in the main, unimpressed with the apparently radical proposals for wholesale nationalisation of South Africa’s mining industry and land expropriation without compensation Malema rammed through the youth league’s June 2010 conference. Ahead of the youth league conference, Southern Africa Report (Vol 29 No 16) noted: “The youth league does not genuinely believe its own nationalisation rhetoric, not with its leadership heavily involved in state tenders and other spinoffs of comprador capitalism, notably in mining and construction”. Assessing the conference itself (Vol 29 No 18) Southern Africa Report noted, “Malema and the league’s new-found radicalism is vulnerable to all but the most superficial analysis” and, more importantly, that his conflation of his policy demands with his presidency project “could end not only his anti-Zuma campaign, but his career in politics”.

By that stage, however, Malema appeared to believe he was unstoppable, confidently riding roughshod over the ANC constitution and entrenched party protocols in his increasingly strident and personalised attacks on Zuma and his government.

Malema was a repeat offender, first convicted in 2010 for bringing the party into disrepute. He was found guilty for a second time by the ANC National Disciplinary Committee (NDC) in December 2011, both of bringing the party into disrepute and of sowing division within its ranks. He was convicted for unfavourably comparing Zuma to Mbeki, and for proposing youth league-assisted regime-change in Botswana.

Malema unsuccessfully appealed the 2011 conviction, but was granted leave by the ANC’s National Disciplinary Committee of Appeal (NDCA) under Cyril Ramaphosa to appeal the sentence to the NDC. But the appeal backfired: while Malema was able to argue for a wrist-slap sentence, ANC prosecutors used the opportunity to argue that Malema’s post-conviction behaviour required a harsher sentence. The NDC agreed and on 29 February 2012 ruled that Malema should be expelled.

On Tuesday, Ramaphosa’s NDCA confirmed his expulsion. In addition, the NDCA ordered that Malema’s suspended sentence from his 2010 conviction – suspension for three years – should take effect. He can reapply for ANC membership only in 2017.

Malema loses not only the presidency and membership of the youth league, but also his seats on:

• The ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC), the party’s highest decision-making body between conferences;
• The party’s powerful, albeit smaller, National Working Committee; and
• The ANC provincial executive in his home province of Limpopo – a seat he won only narrowly, securing 27th position on the list, in a vote under ANC investigation following allegations of vote-rigging and delegate-packing.

The curtain finally came down on the turbulent nine-month disciplinary saga – and on Malema’s lucrative political career – with the final words from Ramaphosa: “The NEC may, in its discretion, review a decision of the NDCA. The NEC’s power of review does not encompass a further appeal, but affords the NEC an opportunity to review decisions of the NDCA to satisfy itself that natural justice has been afforded to a charged member.”

If the NEC concludes that “natural justice” has not been served, its authority is restricted to referring the case back to the NDC.

Malema can now throw himself on the mercy of the ANC NEC, although the ANC constitution makes clear that it is not bound to even consider his request for a review. And given Zuma’s current dominance, the bulk of the NEC will almost certainly fall behind him. The NEC itself has taken a consistently tough stance on matters of discipline since 2010, when the ANC’s National General Council authorised Zuma to crack the whip on anyone stepping out of line – the first sign of ANC anger at Malema and the youth league.

Malema’s approach to the disciplinary process was, like his anti-Zuma project, tactically flawed. He refused to subject himself to the provisions in the ANC’s constitution, instead consistently attacking the integrity of the entire process and of the disciplinary structures of the party. He and his co-accused were also not helped by the insistence on the part of their legal team to resort to the judicial practice known as “obiter dicta” – literally “said in passing”, but used to describe passing comments of only incidentally relevance to the case. While their prospects of success were slim going in, these elements guaranteed that Malema paid the ultimate price.

The NDCA also confirmed the NDC sentences imposed on key Malema youth league allies: the three-year suspension of spokesperson Floyd Shivambu, and the effective year’s suspension of secretary general Sindiso Magaqa.

Magaqa’s removal was something of a surprise: many believed that, after complying with the NDC ruling that he apologise to Minister for Public Enterprises Malusi Gigaba for statements critical of him, Magaqa would retain his post, serving as Malema’s proxy in the league NEC.

Magaqa attempted to withdraw his appeal part-way through the process, but failed to enter his apology in as evidence during the hearings. The NDCA concluded that Magaqa had attempted to withdraw his appeal only once he realised prosecutors might argue successfully for a harsher sentence, and refused to acknowledge the withdrawal.

Magaqa is a staunch Malema backer and would have been a vital base in the youth league through which Malema could have influenced the league after his expulsion.

With the NDCA simultaneously removing Malema and Magaqa, it succeeded in removing both the “head and the belly” of the Malema faction in the league.

This will sharply improve the prospects for youth league treasurer Pule Mabe in the process of appointing a successor to Malema. Mabe argues his case for the presidency on the basis of seniority (length of membership), although the league constitution empowers deputy president Ronald Lamola to take over. In an unsuccessful bid to block Mabe, Malema’s supporters proposed a vote of no-confidence in him in March as the league leadership began to visibly fracture ahead of Malema’s looming expulsion (Vol 30 No 5). The vote was not carried – a clear indication of Malema’s changing fortunes.

The league has already agreed to decide the succession at a special national general council.

While Malema’s support in the league appeared solid through most of the disciplinary process, hairline cracks were evident in the façade in September last year, even before Malema’s NDC conviction.

Antagonism to Malema is rooted in the ruthlessness with which he crushed opposition to his re-election as league president last year. He subsequently purged his opponents in two provinces (KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga) and imposed non-elected loyalist leaderships. Influential national- and provincial-level elements of the league are regrouping, manoeuvring in the scramble unleashed by Malema’s departure.

The post-Malema youth league has yet to indicate the role it hopes to play in the run-up to the ANC’s elective conference. But the NDCA ruling this week imposes tight restrictions on its manoeuvrability.

Ramaphosa’s ruling solidly confirms that the league’s constitution is subordinate to that of the ANC – a position the youth league sought to contest under Malema.

To ram this home, the NDCA has asked the ANC NEC to investigate claims by league officials that it had amended its constitution at its June 2010 conference. The claims are furiously contested by several delegations to the conference, and only appeared on the youth league website version of the constitution after Malema’s NDC conviction in November (Vol 29 No 29). Malema and his co-accused used the supposed amendment to argue that disciplinary action ordered by the ANC disciplinary structures on youth league members is subject to confirmation by the league. The NDCA found that the ANC constitution explicitly prevails over that of the league when the two are in conflict.

There is strong circumstantial evidence that the league constitution was improperly amended subsequent to the June conference – the only forum authorised to amend it. The NDCA request for an investigation into the “amendment” on which Malema, Shivambu and Magaqa relied will thus hang like a cloud over the league leadership structures: the sanction for fraudulently amending the constitution of the ANC or those of its (youth, women’s, veterans’ and military veterans’) leagues is outright expulsion.

The aftershock of Malema’s expulsion will be felt almost as strongly elsewhere in the ANC. The party is only set to open nominations for leadership in October, but Malema’s defeat has sent his backers back to the drawing board. They will have to recast their campaign to dislodge Zuma and de-link from Malema. But the political costs of their dalliance with him will be costly.

Time is against them, and with the youth league split, anti-Zuma forces rapidly need to find a new organisational platform from which to promote their candidate. In Limpopo, Malema’s home province, his ally Cassel Mathale hangs on to the leadership by the narrowest of margins – as the strength of the disgruntled anti-Malema lobby grows daily. And Mathale’s provincial leadership is under investigation for alleged vote rigging at the December provincial conference which returned Mathale.

This adds massively to the difficulty faced by Zuma’s opponents, already facing an uphill battle to convince other provinces, also deeply divided, to throw in their weight against Zuma.

The pro-Motlanthe group must attempt to gain traction among the 5 000 delegates to the ANC elective conference without a public face to their campaign and with a weak organisational base.

Malema’s backers in the ANC will also have to calculate the political risk of on-going support as state agencies close in on him and his business dealings because of alleged corruption. South Africa’s tax authority, the South African Revenue Service, has already ordered Malema to pay R10-million owed to them from undeclared income to his Ratanang Family Trust. Malema is the subject of a multi-agency probe into allegations of money laundering, tax evasion and corruption linked to lucrative state tenders in Limpopo. In September, more than two months before his conviction but with law enforcement agencies already investigating his business affairs, Malema was reported to have moved part of his personal wealth offshore (Vol 29 No 23).