SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila has told party members holding dual ANC membership to not abandon their deployments despite being informed by the ANC to indicate which party they will campaign for in the run-up to the local government elections.
Image: Itumeleng English / Independent Newspapers
The ANC is scrambling to prevent an imminent crisis ahead of the local government elections by forcing its members and deployees holding dual SACP membership to state which organisation they intend to campaign for.
The move comes as the SACP has told its members not to allow the ANC to push them out of its fold due to the party’s decision to contest the upcoming local government elections independently.
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula on Thursday said the party has informed its Tripartite Alliance partners – SACP, Cosatu, and the SA National Civic Organisation – about its decision.
He said the SACP’s decision to contest the upcoming municipal polls independently carried clear organisational consequences.
According to Mbalula, at its special national executive committee (NEC) over the past weekend, the ANC directed that all its members declare whether they will campaign for it or any other political party.
He said the ANC issued a communiqué on Thursday, April 23, and this will be monitored in 10 days. Mbalula indicated that members of the executive at all levels holding dual membership must decide which party they will campaign for.
He said they must declare, not their loyalty, but who they will be campaigning for.
According to Mbalula, the ANC respects the SACP’s decision to contest the elections independently and that they are not going to call its ally any names, as its General Secretary Solly Mapaila has done, calling the party “stooges of capital”.
Mbalula also promised that no communists will be hounded out of the ANC and that anyone who does that will face consequences.
“SACP members in the ANC are not our enemies and will not be treated as such… We are not going to force communists out of the ANC.”
Mbalula added that only the national conference, the ANC’s highest decision-making body, can decide to abandon the Tripartite Alliance.
He said it was possible that after the elections, the ANC and the SACP would share the spoils.
“We’ve never looked at the SACP as a party that brings numbers,” added Mbalula.
Mapaila said the SACP has never had a problem with the ANC in its own right and never disciplined and threatened any of its members for campaigning for the ANC.
He described the ANC’s demand for a declaration of allegiance as a serious anti-communist move that will have far-reaching consequences.
Mapaila accused the ANC of wanting subordination and permanent support, which is an approach the SACP rejects with the contempt it deserves.
He said the Tripartite Alliance has always been strategic but has never been about the liquidation of the SACP into the ANC.
Mapaila said the SACP’s secretariat will be talking to some of the party’s members, but has not received any letter from any member resigning following the ANC’s decision.
“We have said (to our members) they must remain where they are, do their duties, they are ANC members in their own right. We don’t have any quota, and they have been given duties and responsibilities,” he added.
Mapaila said the tripartite alliance’s problems did not arise because the SACP chose to contest elections.
“No amount administrative enforcement can resolve a political crisis,” he insisted.
Mapaila categorically stated that the decision to contest elections stands and will continue.
He said in deliberations with the ANC, the only thing that the SACP could not agree on was to change its national congress decision to contest elections independently, when the ANC cannot even change an NEC decision, yet they wanted the party to change its congress decision.
According to Mapaila, as far back as 1993, the SACP warned that if there is degeneration in the liberation movement, ill-discipline, and chaos, “like the chaos we are seeing in ill-discipline, corruption, and other things, we will have to reconsider that commitment”.
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za