The SACP is becoming impatient with the ANC for “playing with political power” earned through blood, sweat and tears before the 1994 democratic breakthrough.
The arrangement of the ANC elite, hopping from one excuse to the next about failure to fulfil its promises while “the working class is taking a massive knock” is unsustainable, SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila told TimesLIVE Premium.
In Mapaila’s view, the ANC has “failed dismally” in the economy and is regressing instead of improving.
The national democratic revolution (NDR) is on autopilot because it lacks leadership, as the gains made since 1994 are reversed.
The standard of living of the poor and the working class is getting worse — a betrayal by the ANC of its core constituency.
The NDR is in a dead end because the ANC agrees in boardrooms with its alliance partners, the SACP and Cosatu, to pursue pro-poor policies, only to turn around and implement the opposite in government.
Mapaila said, for example, Tito Mboweni’s strategy document for growth was implemented by government after it was rejected by the SACP, Cosatu and the ANC.
On Covid-19 interventions, the ANC agreed with them, but the agreements were “torpedoed by capital” in the implementation.
Another example is government’s failure to “control and tame” the financial sector, especially the banks, for “pushing for an economic trajectory that does not favour the majority”.
The government has elected to prioritise neoliberalism and austerity measures, leading to frustration and impatience.
“This thing that government does not have money is not true; government does have money. The issue is how they use it. One of the problems I have, for example with [finance minister] Enoch Godongwana, is his insistence that there is no money to start a state bank, but there is a state bank already,” said Mapaila.
This thing that government does not have money is not true; government does have money. The issue is how they use it.
“So the fundamental problem of our national democratic revolution is playing with political power and people who do not appreciate the value of the political power they have.
“The alliance has been a strategic political force that led our people to victory against the apartheid regime, albeit we won political power and played with it.”
At its recent congress, the SACP resolved to build a popular socialist front movement rooted in communities to force the ANC's hand.
This movement will return political power to the people, who will shape and be masters of their own destiny.
The political set-up is not working and the SACP will not continue complaining about the ANC government's failure to fulfil its own promises without acting.
“We hope what we can contribute as the Communist Party is an impetus to a new movement for social transformation based in communities,” he said.
“In that way you will not have the situation where everyone is blaming government, because we will be doing things for ourselves and we may even evolve towards [a] people's democracy much sooner than we thought, because, clearly, this representative democracy has created more problems.
“It has created elitism in society between lawmakers and the people and the inequalities are being strengthened by this political system.”
Despite its frustrations, the SACP will not leave the alliance and will work to “influence from within”.
Part of the strategy is a call for equality of alliance partners because “the ANC is not the leader of the alliance” but an equal component.
A reimagined alliance should be one structured to deal with new realities, “where there will be no-one who believes they have more power than the other”.
“We cannot work the old way. We have to reconfigure or the alliance will be weakened or may not even exist. And this front we are building in communities is not in opposition to the alliance but in consolidation of fulfilling the mission of the alliance.”
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