This is where SACP draws the line

THE South African Communist Party’s observation on the state of the Tripartite Alliance, led by the ANC, is accurate. For many years, the SACP has allowed itself to be used as voting cattle for the ANC, which compromised its role in the National Democratic Revolution.

It has become a trend in the current ANC, led by the morally compromised President Jacob Zuma, that when individuals take reckless decisions, the alliance partners take collective responsibility and close the ranks.

The ruling by the Constitutional Court on the Sassa and CPS contract, which suggests the incompetence of Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini, should have been handled differently. It’s not like the president of the ANC and the country was not aware about the Concourt ruling that nullified the illegal contract two years back.

It’s a question of moral compass. The conditions that the SACP gave the ANC to revoke the Guptas’ citizenship, recall Brian Molefe from Parliament or investigate Sassa are for survival of the communists. It’s a strategy to blackmail the president to reconsider his long-awaited decision to reshuffle the cabinet. The allegations that Rob Davies, Jeremy Cronin, Pravin Gordhan, Jeff Radebe and the secretary-general Blade Nzimande are on the firing line served as a wake-up call for the communists to launch a fight-back strategy.

The frustration of the SACP is justifiable, it’s suspicious for the president and his minister of social development to contradict themselves. The two always cry foul against the influence of “white monopoly capital” while they seem not worried about the foreign-owned company benefiting lucratively in paying grants to South Africans, whereas it doesn’t even meet BEE status.

The big question now is who will survive between the SACP and Jacob Zuma? The survival of the president politically is reliant on the upcoming elective conference, where he desperately needs solid support for his ex-wife Nkosaza na Dlamini Zuma to triumph.

The support of ANC Women’s League and the Youth League is not sufficient at this stage, and it would be suicidal for Jacob Zuma to take rushed decisions.

The probability of the ANC not to win the 2019 elections with outright majority looks certain while the ruling party is unable to restore the confidence of the electorate. The burglary incidents in the office of the Chief Justice are a calculated attack on the judiciary to intimidate the judges.

Secretary-General of the ANC Gwede Mantashe, lamented the Gauteng North and Western Cape high courts as agents against the government in 2016, subsequent to the order to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

The SACP is finding a way to distance itself from Zuma’s legacy, and probably exploring the way to exit the alliance. The Young Communist League and some provinces have been of the view that the SACP should pull out, something which the Central Executive Committee suppressed. The communists won’t run away from the exit debate for too long. Phaswana Rofhiwa

It’s a question of moral compass