A bitter fight is brewing in the African National Congress about whether Jacob Zuma should be immediately annointed to succeed Thabo Mbeki as president of the party and the country.

The ANC Youth League has launched a scathing attack on "so-called senior ANC members" and others who are questioning the need to support Zuma as Mbeki's successor.

The Youth League's outburst came just a day after ANC Women's League President Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the home affairs minister, said it was too early to talk about who would succeed Mbeki.

After a Women's League leadership meeting - attended by the Youth League - at the weekend, Mapisa-Nqakula said it was not necessary to discuss the succession issue at the moment and argued that the ANC would deal with the matter at an appropriate time.

But the Youth League made it clear that it differed with Mapisa-Nqakula and insisted that there was no better time to support Zuma.

"We don't agree with her - that does not help the debate," Zizi Kodwa, a spokesperson for the Youth League, said in response to Mapisa-Nqakula's remarks.

"We are an autonomous body, we don't need permission to air our views. We are also not time conscious because people who started the debate were deliberate, they started to tarnish the image of the deputy president. The timing is irrelevant," Kodwa said on Monday.

There were long-held traditions in the ANC which determined who became president of the party, he said. In more recent times the president of the ANC had become president of the country.

"When this debate started we thought it was important to defend the deputy president - he was being called a liability. Even in ANC structures, including Gauteng, there were people who said we should start a succession debate.

"ANC leaders are groomed and all deputy presidents of the ANC have become presidents of the country - we don't agree that there should be a debate," Kodwa said.

In an earlier media statement the Youth League said it was steadfast in its belief that there was "no confusion" about who would succeed Mbeki.

ANC Women's League Secretary-General Bathabile Dlamini said Mapisa-Nqakula's remarks were not aimed at the Youth League, but insisted that the Women's League saw no immediate need for a debate about Mbeki's successor.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Michaels and The Mercury.