SACP in the Eastern Cape joins growing call to contest elections on its own

The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Eastern Cape has intensified calls for the Blade Nzimande-led party to break away from the tripartite alliance and contest elections on its own.

The party’s Eastern Cape provincial structure took the bold decision as part of their declarations during a two-day long provincial council meeting in East London at the weekend.

The decision by the Eastern Cape structure comes after the Mpumalanga provincial congress and the Western Cape provincial council also called for a similar declaration.

The council‚ which was addressed by the party’s Central Committee member Solly Mapaila‚ was attended by 441 delegates from just over 400 SACP Eastern Cape branches.

Mapaila said that the declarations were welcomed by the national structure but delegates to the national congress would have a final say in the decision.

“This is gaining momentum. Clearly there are issues at hand‚ it seems most of our comrades are concerned by how we are shortchanged in the alliance. The ANC‚ which has mandate on behalf of all of us‚ has not handled issues with competency in many respects. This has created problems for us because now we have to account for things sometimes we are not responsible for‚” Mapaila said

Speaking on the declarations‚ SACP Eastern Cape provincial spokesman Siyabonga Mdodi said that the party resolved to intensify the building of its independent profile as an agile‚ adaptive and campaigning SACP‚ in preparing for the eventuality of contesting elections as the SACP.

“It is therefore important to strengthen the SACP capacity to be rooted amongst the working class for the working class with the working class. The council appreciated that the discussion on the SACP‚ the working class and the state power is a necessary ongoing discussion on building the road to socialism‚” Mdodi said.

He said it was because of these concerns that the general council resolved to lobby its national structure.

“It is in this context that the council resolved that the SACP should increase the tempo of contesting the state power for the people’s government. We are going to the SACP augmented party building commission to lobby our party to consider strengthening our contestation of state power through a ballot by developing a clear achievable programme‚” Mdodi said.

He said that the resolution of the council in relation of the party’s constitutional amendments will be processed through its internal processes.

“We will have to go and lobby other party structures in the augmented central committee meeting and ultimately in the 14th National Congress.”

In what could be seen as a veiled reference to the ANC’s decision to take collective responsibility for the party’s dismal‚ the SACP has also called for leaders to take individual responsibility.

“As the party we value the principle of collective leadership and subscribe to it. We are‚ however‚ of the firm view that leadership should be true to the notion of 'self correction' by holding each other accountable and capability to correct each other. In as much as we should take collective responsibility for our collective actions‚ individual leaders should take individual responsibility for their individual actions‚” Mdodi said.

– TMG Digital/The Times