ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has rubbished the upcoming convention called by the SACP dubbed the “conference of the left”, saying that nothing about it is leftist.
“We say openly to our country: the ANC does not consider this convening to be a conference of the left. The composition is itself the political argument.”
Mbalula accused the gathering of being a coalition of negation, saying the only matter of interest that brings the formations together is united dissent against the ANC.
“It is united by what it stands against, namely the ANC in government — and unable to articulate the positive programme by which the working class and the people would advance under its banner. It is a political project dressed in theoretical clothing."
The secretary-general was speaking at a post-national executive committee (NEC) meeting that took place in Ekurhuleni this past weekend.
He asked the organising SACP what made the invited parties leftist in ideology.
“A gathering that proposes to sit chambers of commerce alongside the Bolshevik Party, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party alongside Azapo, business formations alongside trade unions, is not a left formation in any received meaning of the term.”
To that effect, the NEC has also resolved that it will not be participating, he said.
“On the so-called conference of the left convened by the SACP from Friday, the ANC was invited to participate. After careful deliberation among ANC officials and at the national working committee of May 18 and 19, they chose to stay away. Then the NEC resolved to support that position.
“We were even given five minutes to speak anyway; it is not a platform [through which] we would have been able to make substantive political inputs,” Mbalula said.
However, he did say that the ANC had invited the leadership of the SACP to accept a principled, level agreement on the underlying questions about the discipline of the alliance.
“The ANC reaffirms, as the NEC has reaffirmed in every sitting since the founding of the Tripartite Alliance, the relationship between the ANC and the SACP, and the broader alliance of the ANC, the SACP, Cosatu, and the South African National Civic Organisation [Sanco].”
Despite recent tension, particularly over the SACP’s conference resolution to contest the upcoming local government election independently, Mbalula insisted that the alliance must remain united.
“The alliance has stood the test of time; the alliance has stood the test of personalities. The alliance has been founded, since its analytical articulation at Morogoro in 1969 and reaffirmed at Kabwe in 1985, on the principle of unity and struggle against the enemy of the people.”
He described the now complex relationship between components of the alliance as dialectical and complementary.
“The ANC is the leading force of the broad national liberation front; the SACP carries the vanguard role of the working class within the front. That is the position the ANC has carried since 1969, and that is the position the ANC carries today.”
Luthuli House also took to task the nature of the character of the political formations that have been invited and are expected to participate in the conference.
The party believes their tainted past ought to disqualify them from a true gathering of the left.
“The ANC notes that the convening forces have chosen to associate themselves at this gathering with formations whose principal leadership figures were identified by the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture — the Zondo commission — as central to the wrecking of the South African institutions the ANC built."
He referred to state institutions such as the South African Revenue Service (SARS), the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the Hawks, State Security Agency (SSA) as well as state-owned entities such as Eskom, Transnet and the public-procurement system across the state.
“The ANC places that association on the public record. The Alliance stands.
“The ANC remains the centre of the broad national liberation front and of the broad democratic and patriotic forces of our Republic. The work of this period is the work of the national democratic revolution. The answer is in every branch general meeting, in every ward, in every municipality and in every street of the republic in which the ANC has stood, stands and will stand.”
The SACP is expected to forge ahead with its conference this weekend in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni.
The three-day conference from May 29 is expected to be attended by more than 300 people, including the MK Party, EFF, trade unions, think tanks and left-wing activists.
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