JOHANNESBURG — South Africa's ruling party said Tuesday the leader of its youth wing Julius Malema will face disciplinary proceedings over recent remarks that have stoked racial tensions.
"There has been a notice" informing Malema of the proceedings, said Thandi Modise, deputy secretary general of the African National Congress (ANC).
"There have been no formal charges given because the disciplinary committee ... is still in motion," she told a press conference.
"ANC officials will discuss issues of discipline internally and will not engage on internal matters with the media," she said.
"We have nothing to hide. We seek the space to do our business without feeling pressurised," she added, saying the results of the proceedings would be made public.
ANC rules allow a range of disciplinary actions, with expulsion from the party the most extreme penalty.
"When we are finished, we will come back to the media," Modise said.
"The youth league has said to the (ANC leadership) last night that they have remorse" over Malema's attack on the BBC reporter, she said.
Malema, 29, a polemical figure who has said he would go so far as to kill for ANC leader Jacob Zuma, earlier this month called a BBC journalist a "bloody agent" after the reporter interrupted him at a briefing on his recent trip to Zimbabwe.
Malema is also at the centre of a storm over a song, "Shoot the boer" ("farmer" in Afrikaans), which opposition parties say incites violence against whites.
Right-wingers have linked the song to the killing this month of white supremacist Eugene Terre'Blanche, which reignited race tensions 16 years after the end of apartheid.
The song has been banned as hate speech in two court rulings, and Zuma said these decisions should be accepted.
Zuma, who has in the past shielded Malema from public outrage at his fiery rhetoric, said on April 10 that the youth league leader's conduct and statements were "totally alien to the culture of the ANC".
"Certainly there must be consequences for such behaviour," Zuma said.
Malema also stoked controversy earlier this month during a trip to neighbouring Zimbabwe, where he publicly endorsed long-ruling President Robert Mugabe's party, even though Zuma is a regional mediator who is supposed to be neutral in the country's politics.
AFP
