Future of SACP laid out in report
A POLITICAL report by SACP leader Blade Nzimande, before the party leadership’s bilateral with ANC officials this week, has painted a picture of the choices it needs to make about its future in the tripartite alliance, including a new “people’s front” or “coalition”.
Top ANC and SACP officials met this week to iron out issues that have, in recent months, seen the escalation of tension between these historicallyallied parties.
A purported fallout between Nzimande and President Jacob Zuma, since the appointment of a considerable number of communists to the cabinet, has seen the SACP in a precarious position.
Nzimande has suggested the formation of a working class “people’s front” or “coalition” that would “radically lead the second phase of our transition”, a task supposedly assigned to the ANC at its 2012 Mangaung conference.
This option is listed in the SACP report, which Independent Media has seen. The report offers various choices the SACP must consider to deal with its future in the alliance, where it is feeling marginalised amid a looming succession battle in the ANC.
Other choices are maintaining the status quo, “where the ANC reads this to mean unconditional support without any responsibility to be inclusive in dealing the alliance”, or “frank” engagement with the ANC leadership to ask it to “adopt an entirely different political posture”.
This, said Nzimande, would require the dissolution of all factions starting with the so-called “premier league” and to deal with the succession battle before the ANC’s 2017 elective conference.
The party was expected to confront the ANC leadership about its handling of the succession debate in the party, and in particular the existence of the so-called “premier league” in the process.
The “premier league” refers to an alleged grouping of the premiers and ANC chairs of North West, Mpumalanga and the Free State, which seeks to determine the next leadership of the ANC at next year’s elective conference.
A discussion was expected about the ANC’s decision to close the probe into allegations of undue influence of the controversial Gupta family, and the contradictory statements by ANC leaders over the issue of corporate capture.
Desperate to underplay the formation of the “front” or “coalition” as an alternative political party, Nzimande suggested the coalition “need not position itself as an alternative to, but revitalisation of the alliance as a whole”.
The SACP has been faced with the question of whether to break away from the alliance with the ANC, Cosatu and the SA National Civic Organisation, with many challenging it to independently contest the elections if it is unhappy within the alliance. This question continues to be raised by many in the party, including more recently the SACP in Mpumalanga and the Young Communist League.
In the report Nzimande calls on the party to reject the proposal to contest elections independently at its next congress but to consider forming the “front”, while warning its formation would be seen by some as an alternative to the ANC.
He added that talks of such a front should not be aggressive before the local government elections, where the ANC is expected to face a stiff challenge from opposition parties, as this would result in it being attacked by many in the ANC.
“Such a move on the part of the SACP (hopefully with Cosatu and many in the ANC) will be interpreted by the parasitic bourgeoisie and its factionalist front within our movement as an anti-ANC hostile step.
“It is not our first choice to walk away from the ANC. The current trajectory points to the fact the factionalist tendency and parasitic bourgeoisie associated with it in the ANC are prepared to break our alliance.
SACP spokesman Alex Mashilo would not comment. ELECTION campaigns are in full swing and political heavyweights this weekend set their sights on KwaZulu-Natal, with less than seven weeks before the August 3 polls.
President Jacob Zuma is today expected to address ANC supporters who have vowed to paint the Harry Gwala Stadium in Pietermaritzburg black, green and gold.
IFP leader Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi will be addressing his supporters in uMlazi, south of Durban at the King Zwelithini Stadium. The party has used the township as its launch-pad for the elections. Meanwhile, the DA’s provincial leader Zwakele Mncwango took the party’s manifesto to Umkhanyakude, north of KZN. – Staff Reporter