Future of SACP laid out in report
A political report by SACP leader Blade Nzimande has painted a picture of the choices the party needs to make about its future.
|||Johannesburg - A political report by SACP leader Blade Nzimande before the party leadership’s bilateral meeting with ANC officials this week has painted a picture of the choices the party needs to make about its future in the Tripartite Alliance, including the formation of 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 tensions between these historic political allies. Tensions between the two parties are a far cry from the time when the SACP played a decisive role in propelling President Jacob Zuma to the presidency of the ANC and country.
A purported fallout between Nzimande and Zuma since the president ascended to the Union Buildings for his second term and appointed a considerable number of communist leaders 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’s increasingly 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 ahead of the ANC’s 2017 elective conference.
The “premier league” refers to an alleged grouping of premiers and ANC chairpersons of the North West, Mpumalanga and Free State, which seeks to determine the next leadership of the ANC at elective conference.
A discussion was also expected about the ANC’s decision to close the probe into claims 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 it “need not position itself as an alternative to, but revitalisation of the alliance as a whole”.
The SACP has for many years been faced with the dilemma of whether to break away from the alliance with the ANC, Cosatu and Sanco, with many looking at challenging it by independently contesting the elections. In the report, however, Nzimande calls on the party to reject the proposal to contest elections independently at its next congress but to consider forming the new front, while warning that its formation would be seen by some as the creation of an alternative to the ANC.
“Building of such a front by the SACP, acting together with other progressive forces both inside and outside the ANC, does not imply a break-up of the alliance and walking away from the ANC, but a bold and independent initiative by the working class to stamp its authority and provide decisive leadership over the national democratic revolution,” reads the report.
He said that talks of such a front should not be aggressive ahead of the local government elections, where the ANC is expected to face a stiff challenge from opposition parties.
“It is certain that such a move on the part of the SACP (hopefully acting together with Cosatu and with many inside the ANC) will be interpreted by the parasitic bourgeoisie and its factionalist front within our movement as an anti-ANC hostile step.
“They will seek to isolate the SACP from the middle ground within the movement, and present our positions as the principal reason for the decline in electoral support. We can already see the counter-offensive in preparation for inevitable finger-pointing that will follow the August 3 local government elections,” reads the report.
Nzimande raised concerns that “the continuation of the status quo, where the ANC reads this to mean unconditional support without any responsibility to be inclusive in dealing with the alliance”, is increasingly alienating SACP and Cosatu structures. “It’s... not our first choice to walk away from the ANC. However, the current trajectory strongly points to the fact that the factionalist tendency and parasitic bourgeoisie associated with it in the ANC are now prepared to break our alliance.”
SACP spokesman Alex Mashilo said he could not comment on a political report he had not seen.
Sunday Independent