As long as he serves two masters, he can't be effective for either
Mantashe answered: "Mondays are ANC days."
The colleague's question goes to the heart of the debate surrounding Mantashe's dual - and sometimes conflicting - roles as ANC secretary-general and SACP national chairman. Given his answer to this question, and the fact that he usually plays his SACP role on Fridays, isn't it fair to assume that when Mantashe arrived at Esselen Park last Friday for the start of the alliance summit, he was wearing his communist hat?
Judging by this weekend's news reports on the summit, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema and Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane are among the ANC leaders who suspected that this is the case.
According to the Sunday Times, Mantashe was hauled over the coals at an ANC caucus meeting held on the sidelines of the summit that afternoon for apparently not being firm in rejecting Cosatu and the SACP's demand for equal status in the running of both the alliance and the country.
For the past five decades of the alliance's existence, it has been accepted that the ANC is the leader.
But at the summit, Cosatu, and presumably the SACP, wanted an endorsement of a proposal by the alliance secretariat that the three parties - and not just the ANC - be jointly proclaimed the "centre of power".
The alliance secretariat is made up of the Cosatu and SACP general-secretaries - Zwelinzima Vavi and Blade Nzimande respectively - and Mantashe in his ANC capacity.
Whether Mantashe did indeed attempt to sign away the ANC's status as the alliance's senior partner is neither here nor there.
What matters is that his ANC colleagues are beginning to question his ability to wholeheartedly defend the ruling party's interests in disputes with the SACP, seeing that he is also chairman of the communist outfit.
Granted, the uneasiness over Mantashe's two hats could be fuelled by a desire by a cabal at Luthuli House to rid the party's top leadership of "leftist" individuals.
To his credit, Mantashe has demonstrated that he is not hindered by his SACP role and his Cosatu background in carrying out his ANC responsibilities.
We have seen him publicly admonish both the trade union federation and the SACP when they attempted to bully the ANC on contentious issues.
But as long as he continues to serve two masters Mantashe cannot be effective at either job.
With the SACP heading for a special national congress next month, it is an opportune time for the former trade unionist to reconsider his options.
When it was first pointed out that his two posts could lead to a conflict of interest, the communists defended him by pointing to alliance history.
Often quoted was the example of Moses Kotane, the late SACP general secretary who doubled up as ANC treasurer-general in the 1960s.
But those were the exile days, in a cold-war era in which a liberation movement could benefit immensely from the socialist block by flaunting its communist credentials.
Today the ANC is a ruling party in the most advanced capitalist state in Africa and governs in an era in which the world socialist project is in tatters.
Mantashe is not the first communist to occupy a top ANC position in the post-apartheid era.
The difference is that most of those before him did not take up top SACP posts once they accepted ANC office.
Take his ANC predecessor, the current deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, who - despite his long-standing SACP membership - chose to serve only the ruling party in a leadership capacity.
Looking at it from their perspective, the communists have as much right to run for office in the ANC as any non-communist member of the "broad church".
After all, they have contributed as much as any of the other political tendencies to making the ANC the titanic political force that it has become. It would be self-defeating for them to abandon the ship now that it is sailing on smooth seas of governance.
But Mantashe might soon find himself in choppy waters if he continues to straddle the two positions. He should do the wise thing and vacate his SACP office.
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