Julius Malema fined for undermining ANC

JOHANNESBURG — Julius Malema, the firebrand youth leader from South Africa’s ruling party, has been fined and forced to apologise for “undermining” the African National Congress with his controversial speeches.

Malema landed in hot water for breaking the party line on Zimbabwe, singing a racially charged song about killing white farmers, and calling a BBC journalist a “bastard” and chasing him from a press conference.

But an ANC disciplinary committee did not punish him for those incidents.

Instead, he was slapped with a 10,000 rand (1,300 dollar, 1,000 euro) fine late Tuesday and forced to apologise for saying that President Jacob Zuma was worse than former president Thabo Mbeki, who was ousted by the party in 2008.

Malema made the comparison after Zuma publicly chastised him over the other three incidents.

“I, Julius Malema, apologise to the president of the ANC and the republic, comrade Jacob Zuma, and to the membership of the African National Congress and the public in general for the statements and utterances that I made,” Malema said in a statement Wednesday.

“I accept that these statements had the effect of undermining the stature of the president of the African National Congress and of the Republic.

“It further may have had the effect of undermining the confidence of our people in the leadership of the ANC and of creating serious divisions and breakdown of unity in the organization,” said the statement.

Malema was one of Zuma’s most vocal backers during last year’s election campaign, saying at one point that he was ready “to kill” for Zuma.

More recently, the 29-year-old youth leader publicly endorsed long-ruling Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, even though Zuma is a regional mediator who is supposed to be neutral in the country’s politics.

Malema also got into trouble for singing “Shoot the boer”, meaning “farmer” in Afrikaans, which opposition parties say incites violence against whites.

He later called a BBC journalist a “bastard” and a “bloody agent” after the reporter interrupted him at a briefing on his trip to Zimbabwe.

The controversies around Malema have shed light on still-sharp divisions within the ANC, more than two years after Zuma won a bitter battle against Mbeki to lead of the party. AFP

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