The ANC's Youth League has lashed out at SA Communist Party bigwig Solly Mapaila and ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, saying their comments about President Jacob Zuma's Cabinet latest reshuffle was not helping the alliance.
"The ANCYL calls on those who are using this (Cabinet reshuffle) to drive a wedge between Zuma and SACP leadership to stop doing so. We want to caution [Mapaila] to stop with his posture because it is not helping the alliance," said ANCYL spokesman, Mondli Mkhize.
"We want to call on all those who are aggrieved by the reshuffle to stop passing mischievous comments. The ANC remains the only organization that deploys its members, leadership and cadres to various institutions of government and therefore no one should think that [Zuma] has offended a component of the alliance."
Zuma's surprise midday reshuffle on Tuesday saw minister of higher education and SACP boss Blade Nzimande being axed from Cabinet.
Mapaila and the SACP denounced the move, calling the reshuffle a decoy used to remove Nzimande and a declaration of war on the tripartite alliance.
"The ANCYL is utterly disturbed, to say the least, by the apolitical utterances made by [Mantashe] on consultative reshuffling. [Mantashe] tacitly insinuates that the officials were not consulted. By so doing, [Mantashe] is directly casting aspersions on Zuma as being non-consultative," Mkhize said.