Continued unemployment will cost ANC at ballot box, warns new YL president

New ANC Youth League President Collen Malatji, elected unopposed at the league’s national conference this weekend. told reporters that the structure’s focus ahead of the 2024 elections will be solutions to unemployment. 

"If the youth league does not address the high levels of unemployment in this country and doesn't address all the issues that were raised by this country, it is clear that the ANC will lose hegemony. The only strategy of the elections is to address those issues.

“People can no longer listen to anything else that does not speak to them. And we have a voice to raise to the ANC to say it can't be that over 70% of unemployed people in this country are young people, and we expect that they will." 

This past weekend’s elective conference was the ANCYL’s first since 2015, meaning the governing party has been without a legitimate youth league structure for the past eight years. 

At the weekend, nearly 3000 ANCYL delegates descended to Nasrec to elect their top six leaders. 

Additional NEC members were announced on Monday afternoon, with former deputy ANCYL task team convenor Fasiha Hassan topping the list. 

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