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Johannesburg – The South African Communist Party (SACP) says it will never agree to anything that poses a threat to the tripartite alliance - although it would have preferred to meet with the ANC ahead of the August 8 motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma.
The party told delegates at its 14th national congress that it was still waiting to meet with the ANC following calls it made for Zuma to resign as the head of state.
Its General Secretary Blade Nzimande also told journalists that the party’s members would not go in "blindly".
The SACP and other alliance partners have expressed a lack of confidence in Zuma.
He has also been banned from speaking at any of their engagements. Several attempts to host bilateral talks and an alliance council since the pronouncements have also been unsuccessful.
"The SACP constitution is very clear. All SACP members who participate in fraternal organisations are bound by the decisions of those organisations. It is written down in the constitution of the SACP ... and the SACP constitution was not amended," said the party’s spokesperson Alex Mashilo.
Mashilo also said he was not willing to speculate on what the party’s leadership would decide when it comes to the motion of no confidence.
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"There are too many considerations to make because the SACP has to guard against its own constitution [being] violated, which is why alliance meetings are crucial," he added.
Mashilo said the motion, which was sparked by Zuma’s late night Cabinet reshuffle in April, was not brought by the SACP or the ANC but by opposition parties, which he said were seeking to get rid of the liberation movement along with its allies and not just the president.
"These opposition parties have said that in fact, their objective is not the removal of the president, their objective is the removal of the ANC all together with the alliance. The DA said that yesterday. In fact, it proposed that there elections [must be] held," said Mashilo.
He added that EFF leader Julius Malema had continuously called ANC members of parliament (MPs) "cowards" while pushing for the voting in the motion to be done by secret ballot.
“The main objective is not to remove president Zuma, but it is to remove the whole of the ANC and the alliance," he said.
Mashilo said even though he did not know what decision the SACP office bearers and MPs would decide, they were in the National Assembly as representatives of the ANC.
“I am sure you are aware that the SACP, being an alliance partner of the ANC at present, will never ever form part of any agenda to remove the ANC."
He added that as long as the SACP was in an alliance with the ANC, there was no way they could support the removal of the governing party.
The ANC’s national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa told News24 on Wednesday that there were plans to meet "soon" but explained that there had been a lot of other commitments, including the ANC’s June policy conference and the SACP’s national congress in July.
"We were directed by the national policy conference that we continue to have bilaterals with all alliance partners with a view to strengthen the alliance," said Kodwa, adding, however, that schedules had been "busy" all around.
