SACP, ANC face off for first time at polls
ALL EYES are on the Metsimaholo municipality in the Free State today, as the SACP and ANC make history by facing off in an election for the first time since 1994.
In an event set to be the litmus test for the relationship between the two parties, the SACP, which has already resolved to contest for state power, is contesting all the 21 wards in the small council to gauge its power in the run-up to the 2019 elections.
Yesterday, campaigning in the area reached fever pitch, as opposition parties also scrambled to ensure that the ANC does not wrest back what used to be one of its strongholds in the province.
Fifteen political parties are jostling for control of the small municipality in the Fezile Dabi district, including the DA, the EFF and the Metsimaholo Community Association.
The municipality mainly consists of Sasolburg townships such as Zamdela, and is made up of 21 wards.
The municipality has been rocked by instability since the ANC was dislodged during last year’s local government elections.
An opposition coalition chose Metsimaholo Community Association’s leader Sello Hlasa as mayor while the DA secured the speaker position. But Hlasa crossed the floor and went back to the ANC, triggering the collapse of the council in July this year.
This led to its dissolution by the Free State provincial government, which put it under administration.
Yesterday, SACP Free State secretary Bheke Stofile said the move was made by the national leadership after requests by the locals in Metsimaholo, some of whom are members of the party.
Stofile said the party was confident of doing well in today’s by-election. “We are contesting all the wards and our campaign went well. The decision was a national decision as it was taken by the central committee, so we cannot reverse it as lower structures,” he said.
The unprecedented move to go up against the ANC at these elections comes just a few months after the SACP took a resolution to contest state power as a result of the fallout with President Jacob Zuma.
Provinces such as KwaZuluNatal and Mpumalanga and the Young Communist League (YCL) have long been agitating for the SACP to go it alone at the polls.
The ANC in the Free State has warned that the SACP’s decision to challenge it would ruin alliance relations.
Thabo Meeko, the ANC provincial spokesperson, said the governing party had been trying without success to convince the SACP to reverse its decision.
“This has created very difficult conditions for the ANC, especially when there is an instruction from national leadership that we must continue to preserve the alliance moving forward. But it has been a view of the Free State ANC that we must be the last ones who will call for the dissolution of the alliance,” Meeko said.
Political analyst Professor Tinyiko Maluleke said relations between the ANC and SACP had been strained “to the fullest” recently, even more than when the ANC was under former president Thabo Mbeki.
He said while there was no love lost between the two alliance partners, the ANC had been blatant in showing the SACP its powerlessness.
“The ANC has been able to call the bluff of the SACP, for example by recalling Blade Nzimande as higher education minister. Zuma was saying to the SACP: ‘this is what I can do; what can you do?’” Maluleke said.