20110913
Reuters
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's ruling ANC does not plan to throw firebrand youth leader Julius Malema out of the party and he should be helped "to do the right things" rather than be punished, President Jacob Zuma said in an interview published on Tuesday.

Malema,30, is currently facing an internal African National Congress disciplinary hearing on charges of bringing the party into disrepute and of sowing division in party ranks.

The hearing is widely seen as a showdown with Zuma and which could see Malema suspended from the ANC if he is found guilty.

Zuma -- who won power with the backing of Malema and the ANC Youth League -- said in an interview with Business Report financial daily that Malema's removal was not the ANC's goal.

"No, I don't think that should be the objective. I think the objective is how do you help Malema? Because Malema has a lot of elements that are good in him," Zuma said.

His comments were his first since the start of the disciplinary action and the strongest indication yet that Malema will not be suspended from the party, which would have ended his political career.

Malema's calls for the nationalisation of South Africa's mines and the seizure of white-owned land has unnerved investors, and at the weekend he made clear he had no intention of backing down from inflammatory comments when he declared "economic war" on the country's white minority.

Zuma said Malema had good qualities but often made inflammatory and militant comments in a bid to appease his supporters among the youth.

"If you are like Malema, you've got to be finding new issues all the time, because you get used to impressing people; they must be clapping hands for you, and that's when you make a lot of mistakes because you say a lot of wrong things," Zuma said.

Malema was found guilty of hate speech for singing an apartheid-era song calling for the killing of white farmers in a separate civil court case on Monday.

He was ordered to pay some of the costs in the case which did not carry a criminal penalty.

Zuma told Business Report that the ANC had to help Malema.

"The ANC never gives up on people. It has patience. I think what we should do is help Malema".

Zuma faces a major ANC meeting in late 2012 when the party that dominates the country's politics elects its leaders. He will be in a strong position for re-election if Malema is sidelined but could struggle if Malema stays in the ANC and supports Zuma's rivals for the top job.