Publications
Partners
The tripartite alliance is putting forward a united front ahead of this year’s local government elections. The SACP and Cosatu’s leaders have spoken about defeating factionalism and equal membership of the alliance, and closed ranks around the ruling party today.
Speaking at the commemoration event of former South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo today, the party’s general secretary Blade Nzimande spoke strongly against the emerging factions in the ANC, saying that “the biggest threat we face now is the danger of factionalism in our movement”.
Nzimande said the SACP would campaign for the ANC in the upcoming 2016 municipal elections.
“But also in our own right we must convene meetings to listen to communities on what kind of councillors and municipalities they want,” he said.
He said this was imperative so that “when we campaign we know exactly what the community wants ... That is the only reason. We are not competition with the ANC,” he said.
He said the party members should not be intimidated because it was discussing whether it should contest elections independently.
“We have right to have that discussion because at all times communists must be vigilant,” said Nzimande.
However, he said “that commitment must not be abused. We must be consulted on everything in our communities. We are not going to stand back”.
Earlier, the president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, S’dumo Dlamini, said that there were “no junior partners in the alliance”.
He said Cosatu would support the ANC because it was a national congress decision.
“You may call us a battered spouse or abused partner but all we are saying is that it is a congress decision,” Dlamini said.
He said it would also be “very difficult to campaign for a candidate who is not wanted by communities” – a sentiment later echoed by Nzimande, who said the ANC must stick to its election processes in terms of the selection criteria of councillors and those who deviate should be brought to book.
“Do not give us councillors whom people do not want. And if we have processes of nomination, councillors stick to those processes. Anyone deviating from that must be brought to book,” said Nzimande.
He said that he was not worried that last year’s calls for President Jacob Zuma to resign, because of the finance minister blunder, would dent the ANC’s chances in the upcoming local-government polls.
“It is very clear that there is a heightened regime-change agenda in the country [and] the alliance also agrees,” said Nzimande.
He said the incident underlined the necessity of unity in the alliance.
“[That is why] we need to defeat factionalism in our own ranks and seek to maintain this broad unity. People who think the ANC can simply walk away and go its own route and still be able to do [things] the way it has been doing they are hugely mistaken,” he said.
“Why take that risk so that certain people want to turn the ANC into their personal fiefdom? That is completely unacceptable.”
Nzimande said he was “not sure” that a significant number of South Africans bought into the #ZumaMustFall campaign.
“All that we saw where some white compatriots who were never there like Joe Slovo when we fought apartheid. But we see them marching for the first time now,” he said.
He said the ANC should ignore the side issues and focus on its strengths to win the upcoming elections.
Commenting on the campaign for Zuma to step down, Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau – who is also chairperson of the ANC in the region – said: “It is important that the national leadership of the ANC responded to what people’s concerns were by taking into account all the public submissions that were made and the leadership made a decision.”
Tau said that those who had called for the recall of the president were “being opportunistic” and refused to accept that the ANC was responsive to the views of the people who raised concerns.
“Our people understand that the issue was engaged and resolved. We are dealing with issues and talking about the future,” he said.
He said that going into an election campaign “you do not take anything lightly, but, it is about convincing people that you are the best movement to serve the country”.
“I do not think a campaign could be reduced to individual incidents,” said Tau.
