The bitter rift between ANC president Thabo Mbeki and his deputy Jacob Zuma claimed its first political casualties this week.

The ANC Youth League yesterday announced the suspension of three of its officials who have publicly supported Mbeki’s possible bid for a third term as ANC president.

The move comes as the ANC is frantically trying to deal with tension in its ranks sparked by Mbeki’s dismissal of Zuma.

Zuma was fired following a Durban High Court ruling by Judge Hilary Squires that found that there was a “generally corrupt relationship” between Zuma and Durban businessman Schabir Shaik.

Yesterday, the ANC Youth League announced the suspension of its deputy president, Reuben Mohlaloga, Eastern Cape provincial chairman Thabo Mdukiswa and his secretary-general, Thabo Matiwane, pending the outcome of a disciplinary process.

The differences between Mohlaloga and league president Fikile Mbalula began after Mohlaloga publicly expressed his support for Mbeki’s rumoured bid to run for a third term as party president.

Mohlaloga announced his support for Mbeki after Mbalula had declared that Mbeki’s bid for a third term would divide the ANC by creating two centres of power.

Mbeki has not ruled out the possibility of running for a third term as ANC president.

Mbalula supports Zuma’s candidacy for the position of the ANC’s next president. The issue will be decided during the party’s national conference in 2007.

Mdukiswa and Matiwane’s suspension was prompted by their public denunciation of the league’s stance on the Zuma affair. They wrote an open letter distancing the youth league’s provincial structure from its national executive committee’s position on the matter.

An unrepentant Mohlaloga yesterday told the Sunday Times that he stood by what he had said.

The league’s secretary-general, Sihle Zikalala, said the three suspended officials would appear before a disciplinary committee soon.

He added that the three should have raised their displeasure within the structures of the youth league. That they “raised these issues outside the movement’s structures is nothing other than misconduct”.

With acknowledgements to Ndivhuho Mafela and the Sunday Times.