By: JN Reporter

The obviously frustrated young lions of the ruling party (ANC Youth League) have vowed to face off with its mother body… accusing its leadership in government of betraying the Freedom Charter and burying the dreams of young people in a mass grave. According to the party’s young wing in the Free State, the leadership in government has opted to nurse their neo-liberal policy frameworks that have failed and continue to fail the poor and the working class, especially the youth, rather than focusing on the implementation of concrete action in response to the deepening crisis of youth unemployment. The recent Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the fourth quarter of 2024, released by Statistics South Africa in February this year, shows that the Free State’s unemployment rate has increased by 1.9 percentage points and currently stands at 38.5%, which rises to 41% with the expanded unemployment definition. The league’s Provincial Secretary, Jackson Mthembu, said the young lions will not stand idle while young people are being condemned to permanent unemployment and will lead a disciplined and militant march to the Office of the Premier, Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae, which is scheduled to take place on Monday. “After studying the 2025 State of the Province Address (SOPA) and the R45.8 billion 2025/26 Provincial Budget, it is clear that the Free State government is not taking youth unemployment seriously. What we are witnessing is not merely an oversight, it is a political choice. The Free State’s entire budget planning remains anchored in neo-liberal policy frameworks that have failed and continue to fail the poor and the working class, especially the youth,” said Mthembu. During her State of the Province Address that she delivered just days after the release of unemployment statistics in February, Premier Letsoha-Mathae, effortlessly vowed that the 2025/26 financial year will see her administration driving inclusive growth and job creation to set the province on a daring developmental path. “We will implement more programmes to increase access to finance and opportunities for mainly women, youth, persons with disabilities, and businesses owned by military veterans. We are not apologetic about this,” promised Letsoha-Mathae. However, speaking to Journal News, political analyst Prof Sethulego Matebesi from the University of the Free State (UFS) believes the challenge faced by the current Youth League is failing to detach themselves from contaminated leaders in the organisation. “I am not sure what the league aim archive, however, if this is meant to fight internal party battles between the party leadership in the Free State and the premier, it will further serve as a prove that our youth have mastered the wrong doing of our current leaders and unable to detach from them. The question then becomes, how is this going to assist them inherit a healthy organisation in the future as the next leadership?” asked Matebesi. Nonetheless, Mthembu, warned that the province is sitting on a ticking time bomb. “If this crisis is not addressed with urgency, the province will face a revolt of the excluded. If the Free State government does not act, it will face its own version of the Arab Spring. When hope is denied, unrest becomes inevitable,” warned Mthembu, adding that “the Free State holds the shameful and unacceptable title of having the highest youth unemployment rate in the country, even exceeding the national average. More than 442,000 young people aged 15–34 are not in employment, education, or training. This is not just a statistic; it is a mass grave of dreams.” He said that the Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) of the Youth League has resolved to lead a provincial Youth March to Letsoha-Mathae to demand urgent and concrete action in response to the deepening crisis of youth unemployment. “The province has no targeted industrialisation strategy, no green jobs programme, no youth cooperative development plan, no investment in township and rural economies, and no meaningful rollout of the Presidential Employment Stimulus. The budget merely recycles promises and projects that do not speak to the urgency of the youth crisis. The obsession with fiscal restraint over social investment, the reliance on private sector-led growth while the state retreats from direct job creation, and the absence of a youth-focused industrial policy, all reflect a deliberate ideological alignment with neo-liberalism. This represents a betrayal of the Freedom Charter and a tragic abandonment of the developmental state vision long championed by our movement,” he said. Meanwhile, Mthembu revealed that young unemployed people from all sectors will be expected to join in the march and hand over their CVs to the premier as a symbolic and direct challenge to the status quo and refuse to celebrate hollow victories of Youth Month while they are being sacrificed on the altar of budget cuts, austerity, and economic exclusion.