SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila has called for his party and Cosatu to swell the ranks of ANC leadership structures to agitate for policy direction in favour of working-class interests.
Mapaila, who was addressing the Cosatu 14th congress in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, said it was a shame criminals were dominating ANC power dynamics while leaders of the so-called working class watch from the sidelines. It was for this reason Cosatu and SACP leaders should contest for power in the ANC, he said.
“The working class has to contest the ANC. Today the working class just enter the ANC for debate, raise issues and the issues are ignored,” said Mapaila.
“But criminals are now contesting the ANC. How can criminals be better than revolutionaries? They contest the ANC and their views are heard in policy frameworks, in tender systems. They control leaders, they fund leaders to contest positions in the movement to come and lead the national democratic revolution.
“This cannot be allowed to go on anymore. The working class has to stand up.”
Criminals dominate ANC power dynamics, says SACP boss Mapaila
Working class must swell leadership ranks of governing party, congress hears
Image: ANTONIO MUCHAVE
SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila has called for his party and Cosatu to swell the ranks of ANC leadership structures to agitate for policy direction in favour of working-class interests.
Mapaila, who was addressing the Cosatu 14th congress in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, said it was a shame criminals were dominating ANC power dynamics while leaders of the so-called working class watch from the sidelines. It was for this reason Cosatu and SACP leaders should contest for power in the ANC, he said.
“The working class has to contest the ANC. Today the working class just enter the ANC for debate, raise issues and the issues are ignored,” said Mapaila.
“But criminals are now contesting the ANC. How can criminals be better than revolutionaries? They contest the ANC and their views are heard in policy frameworks, in tender systems. They control leaders, they fund leaders to contest positions in the movement to come and lead the national democratic revolution.
“This cannot be allowed to go on anymore. The working class has to stand up.”
Workers boo Mantashe as Cosatu president warns of impact of ANC losing power in 2024 polls
Mapaila questioned whether it was wise for workers to continue voting for the ANC. This because, he charged, the ANC was relentless in advancing the “neoliberal economic trajectory” which did not benefit the working class
Therefore, “we may as well put this question of the reversal of the neoliberal economic trajectory as a precondition for the continued support of the ANC if we do so in the coming elections”.
Workers should determine their own future without relying on the hope the ANC will do right by them, he added.
“We must therefore, as we place this radical agenda of society, accept that we will have to free ourselves by ourselves. No one will free us as the working class.”
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