Times journalist and author Fred Khumalo once wrote about Malema, whom he called an ihlongandlebe or “contumelious nincompoop”: “On second thoughts, I think I have to thank the gods of academia for denying Malema the stamina for rigorous study. Imagine a highly educated Malema.”)
Malema’s leadership of Cosas was marked by violent and unruly behaviour, especially during a march on the Gauteng Department of Education in Johannesburg in 2002 when Cosas members looted shops, vandalised property and stole from street traders. In 2003, when he was objecting to fraud and theft charges brought against Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, he declared that Cosas would burn down the jail if she were to be locked up.
Malema says he was a “fundamentalist” in his youth. He told Crwys-Williams: “When you grow up, you grow up a fundamentalist, a communist hard-core, you think everything has got to do with communism.” When asked whom he wanted to meet most, he said: “You always have this ambition that perhaps one day one should have a chance to talk to Fidel (Castro) and hear where they come from with this background. Because, you know that amongst the remaining communists Fidel represents the real communism.”
Malema was elected president at the chaotic 2008 national conference of the Youth League at Mangaung in Bloemfontein, where the delegates displayed the worst behaviour ever recorded at an ANC event. Mostly drunk, they disrupted speakers and made sure no real discussion could take place. The conference had to be dismissed eventually, but not before the election of the top five leaders had taken place and Malema came out victorious (it was alleged that he spent vast amounts of money during his campaign). The prevailing image of the conference will be the young delegate, probably under the influence of alcohol, pulling down his pants and flashing his bare bottom at opponents of Malema’s candidature.
Another conference had to be scheduled at the Nasrec conference centre outside Johannesburg months later to elect the rest of the league’s national executive committee, an event that was the opposite of the Mangaung conference. Quietly and with no big upsets, the conference drafted its resolutions and elected the rest of the leadership. No one was surprised by the turnaround – this time the stakes were not as high. The supporters of Jacob Zuma knew that Malema would be a key factor in the 2009 election campaign, and they needed to make sure their man got the job. Once that had been sorted out at Mangaung, there was little to lose and the Nasrec conference went off without a glitch.
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