South Africa's ruling party expels youth leader

South Africa’a ruling party, the African National Congress, expelled the group's youth leader late yesterday night, the latest attempt to control a figure who has angered his elders with his militant rhetoric and persistent questioning of policy. The party's disciplinary committee ruled in November that Julius Malema had sown intolerance and disunity within the party, and sentenced him to a five-year suspension. Malema appealed, and ended up with a much tougher sentence – expulsion.

“It seems that Mr. Malema has gambled on an earlier disciplinary punishment of a suspension being reduced. Instead, he has felt the full force of the ANC’s disciplinary wrath,” according to Gunter Simmermacher, editor of “The Southern Cross”, the nation’s largest Catholic weekly.

“Mr. Malema was a very influential figure. Some people thought that he was expressing the aspirations of the poor, the landless, and the powerless. Other people thought that he was a populist demagogue,” he said. “It seems that those people who are in control of the ANC at the moment have decided that he is a demagogue, rather than somebody who is expressing the legitimate aspirations of the poor people.”

Listen to the full interview of Gunter Simmermacher with Christopher Wells: