SACP deputy denounces Number One

Party leadership raises the red flag

THE SACP has said President Jacob Zuma should shoulder some blame for the ANC’s decline in support in recent local government elections, including the loss of three metros to DA-led coalitions.

The party said it was also disappointed at the ANC national executive committee’s response to the loss of support.

The SACP’s central committee is meeting for the first time since the elections and is expected to take a strong stance on the reasons for the ANC’s worst electoral performance.

Deputy general- secretary Jeremy Cronin said yesterday the party was doubtful the ANC had the capacity to arrest what had been a consistent decline in support for the party.

While the results could not be attributed to a single factor, there were serious issues directly related to the president, he said.

While the SACP has refrained from an outright call for Zuma to step down, the party said it was clear opposition parties had capitalised on the weaknesses directly related to Zuma.

“Certainly it is no secret that the opposition parties ran their election campaigns not on local issues but on national issues, especially the clumsy manner in which the ANC handled the Nkandla matter, for instance, and other things.

“The leadership of the ANC and the leader of the ANC need to acknowledge that there are presidential issues, like Nkandla and throw-away remarks about clever blacks which were unwise and have constituted a liability for the ANC and its alliance,” said Cronin.

“This central meeting was preceded by a meeting of the political bureau and certainly at that level the officials are disappointed at the nature of the position taken by the NEC, less by what was said, but more by what was not said.”

This came against a background of the ANC identifying problems accurately for many years. These included the growing gap between the mass base and the political elite within the ANC, the problems of corruption, gate- keeping and manipulation of membership lists.

Cronin said the party would consider the recent discussions on the call for an early conference, but warned it would only support such a call if it was based on the principle of “refreshing” the leadership of the ANC and dealing with the core challenges facing the party.

“If it is to be a worthwhile conference it needs to unify the ANC, but unifying it on a principle basis and not just unifying it on the basis of covering up differences and negotiations between factions, or a shootout between factions.

“Even an early elective conference, if it is rigged in terms of membership like we saw in KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial conference, will produce many problems, as we have seen,” Cronin continued.

It was time, he said, for ANC officials and the NEC to think “profoundly” about the challenges being faced.

He was concerned that at national leadership level, the ANC appeared paralysed about how to move forward.

Jeremy Cronin