Red sunset looming?
It is clear that the SA Communist Party and its many leaders in government across the country have, since the ascent of President Jacob Zuma, commanded influence in the state and in the ANC.
But the key question, ahead of the ANC’s elective conference in 2017, is: will this influence last?
The single most widely hailed policy development in our recent history, the creation of the National Planning Commission (NPC), emerged in part from the SACP. It was the party that, pre-Polokwane, recommended a central planning body within government.
The actual NPC was not exactly what the party had envisioned. It did not, for instance, anticipate that it would be made up of academics, business people and members of civil society. But the idea of central planning was strongly influenced by the SACP.
Policies such as the National Health Insurance, the Industrialisation Policy Action Plan and its offspring, the focus on mineral beneficiation, were influenced by the party, but with varying, mostly slow, degrees of implementation by government.
The most glaring example of the SACP’s influence is its representation in national government. Minister in the presidency Jeff Radebe and his deputy Buti Manamela are both party members.
Blade Nzimande, Jeremy Cronin, Thulas Nxesi, Senzeni Zokwana, Tina Joemat Pettersson, Rob Davies, Godfrey Oliphant and Madala Masuku are all ministers and deputy ministers who are SACP members, with many serving in its top leadership structure, the central committee.
While they are party members and leaders, the SACP points out that its “deployees” to government are ANC members in their own right.
Insiders say decisions on deployment are taken solely by the ANC and the SACP is simply asked afterwards whether it is willing to release its leaders to serve in government.
The SACP is represented in all three spheres of government.
But its ascent into the upper echelons of power has weakened the party. Toeing the government line has compromised its role as a guardian of workers and the poor.
The most obvious example is its position on e-tolls. Last week at the SACP’s special national congress, Nzimande riled workers by dismissing the e-tolls debate — which contributed to a drop in the ANC’s electoral performance in Gauteng — as being effectively a “middle-class issue”. His comments came as the president of Cosatu, Sdumo Dlamini — who is also a member of the SACP central committee — looked on. Cosatu is at the forefront of the push to have e-tolls scrapped, a policy position decided on by workers at a Cosatu congress.
Yet, the SACP’s influence over Cosatu leaders has resulted in the federation dithering over the campaign against the system.
The SACP is partly blamed by some Cosatu leaders for the huge factional fall-out between federation bosses, which this week could lead to the creation of a new federation led by former federation general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
The SACP’s proximity to the ANC and its access to positions of power within the party has also resulted in rifts between it and the governing party.
The relationship between the SACP and the ANC in Mpumalanga has broken down almost irretrievably. The SACP in the province has been vocal in its criticism of corruption there. Some say this stems from the party being sidelined from positions of power in the area. In ANC Mpumalanga chairman, David Mabuza, the SACP is taking on a formidable foe: one who is close to Zuma, and whose growing irritation with the party was evident at the memorial services held for JB Marks and Moses Kotane earlier this year.
Nzimande, like a growing number of ANC leaders, is said to have presidential ambitions. The SACP’s spat with Mabuza — who is part of a powerful bloc in the ANC, along with Free State chairman Ace Magashule and his North West counterpart, Supra Mahumapelo — is set to place it in the firing line as the ANC’s 2017 congress approaches.
Whether the SACP’s perceived influence will linger post-2017 is debatable.
This is why, at its special national congress last week, the party did not firmly shut the door on contesting elections on its own. It is keeping its options open — opportunistically so, some critics have argued. It resolved that it would evaluate its stance toward electoral politics in an “ongoing manner”. It has set up a standing committee on “state power and electoral options” to conduct this evaluation in the context of “changing realities” — or perhaps, changing relations with the ANC?
‘‘ AT ITS SPECIAL NATIONAL CONGRESS LAST WEEK, THE SACP DID NOT SHUT THE DOOR
ON CONTESTING ELECTIONS ON ITS OWN