SACP swipes back at allegations
AS THE ANC succession battle builds up, the SACP has launched an attack on ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) President Bathabile Dlamini, labelling her comments as “intoxicated utterances”.
This comes after Dlamini took a swipe at the communists after allegedly disapproving of Nkosazana DlaminiZuma as the league’s preferred candidate to take over from President Jacob Zuma.
The New Age quoted Dlamini on Monday as saying the SACP was factional when it previously described her candidacy as a move to ensure Zuma ruled beyond his term of office.
“It’s an insult. How can they stoop so low to talk about the dynasty of Zuma. They are part of factions; they read Lenin and Marx but they don’t implement it,” she was quoted as saying.
But, the SACP did not take kindly to her comments and took the matter to social media to vent its anger.
In a post on its official Twitter account on Tuesday, the party said: “SACP hasn’t glorified with response intoxicated utterances by Bathabile Dlamini attacking it using @The_New_Age as her factional mouthpiece.”
Party followers were also peeved by the reported comments made by Dlamini with one saying: “Clearly she is struggling to understand; by so doing undermine efforts to solidify alliance.”
Yesterday, SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo defended their tweet, saying the league’s president had made an allegation and also launched an attack against their party.
“That is what will cause a problem…There is an allegation against the SACP and a leader of a structure of the ANC is attacking the SACP,” Mashilo said.
“These are things that will cause problems not in the succession debate, but in the broader alliance,” he added.
Mashilo also said the SACP could have easily drafted a statement responding to Dlamini, but did not wish to “glorify” the baseless allegations.
He also denied that the SACP had ever claimed Dlamini-Zuma’s candidacy was to ensure Zuma ruled beyond his term.
“We did not say that in the first instance,” Mashilo said.
He raised concern that Dlamini had not contacted the SACP before making the comment but just took a swipe at them. “That attack was ill-informed. That attack was not sober. It was factional.
“She knew what she was doing. Unfortunately, the content of the attack was not sober,” Mashilo insisted.
Repeated attempts to obtain comment from the ANCWL were unsuccessful.