Party to rally behind Ramaphosa
THE SACP looks set to rally behind the ANC leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The party is also likely to review its decision to contest local government elections, saying internal battles in the ANC forced the SACP to review a decision it took at its national congress in July 2017.
The SACP also claimed that those who were responsible for state capture were launching a fightback to reclaim the ANC.
This is contained in the SACP’s discussion document for four days of its special national congress, which starts in Bredell, near Kempton Park, today.
The party has vowed to support Ramaphosa’s leadership, despite complaints from leaders that they were “treated like second-class ANC members”.
The SACP said it played an “absolutely” critical part in the run-up to the ANC December 2017 national conference “in opening up space for the anti-state capture platform centred around Ramaphosa being able to hold public meetings and rallies in localities that were otherwise no-go areas”.
The SACP also claims its role in fighting state capture led to some of its national leaders being excluded from the ANC national executive committee, and in ANC parliamentary lists prior to the May 2018 elections.
“We have played a critical role from within the ANC alliance, and from within government, in the growing defeat of the Zuma-linked web of state capture,” the party said.
“If we had contested independently on a principled, anti-corruption and pro-socialist basis on May 8, then it is very probable that we would not have been able to play this role remotely to the same degree, and the result may well have been a Zuma-led ANC plunging below 50% in elections and forming coalitions with the EFF.”
It, however, admits in the discussion document there were people who were going to raise the question of contesting elections independently for the 2021 local government elections.
“This may well be an essential step, but once more the SACP will need to assess not just the likely success or otherwise of such a move, but also the impact such a step will have on the ANC in the midst of its own major internal battles, on the alliance and on the possibilities of reconfiguring it.”
It adds: “SACP support for the ANC was not a reflection of being opportunistically blinded by the Ramaphoria cult motivated by a narrow set of electoral calculations.
“The resolutions on state and popular power at the 14th congress widely canvassed the complexity of conjecture in 2017 and laid the basis for deep discussion of the changing conjecture in the party structures.
“The decision to campaign for the ANC electoral victory was informed more by analysis that the support for the ANC was a necessary intervention in the safeguarding of the national democratic revolution.”
The party has promised to ensure that SACP members occupy leadership positions in both national government and provincial legislatures.