MK vets boycott SACP's national congress
10 July 2017
Johannesburg – The Umkhonto WeSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) has decided to snub ANC alliance partner the South African Communist Party (SACP) by not attending its 14th national congress.
The SACP's conference will take place throughout the week in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni.
The communist party has been at loggerheads with some in the ANC after it made calls for president of both the ANC and country Jacob Zuma to step down as the head of state.
It also launched an attack on the president's close associates, the Gupta family, calling for their South African citizenship to be revoked and for them to speedily return to their home country, India.
It has also continued to warn against a "network of parasitic patronage" which relied on the plundering of state resources and rent seeking.
The MKMVA in a statement released on Monday said it acknowledged with “gratitude" the invitation to participate in the 14th congress, but had decided not to attend.
"The current unfortunate path that the SACP has taken to disregard the well-established tradition that alliance partners do not prescribe to each other about internal organisational matters by trying to prescribe to the ANC about who should be its president," it said.
The MKMVA also expressed unhappiness with the vanguard party for supporting trade union federation Cosatu's decision to issue a blanket ban against the president. The federation took the decision after affiliates booed and heckled Zuma at a Workers' Day rally in May.
"MKMVA values the tri-partite alliance, but we believe that it is critical for the SACP and Cosatu to return to the fundamentals that made the alliance such a great success and formidable force in our liberation struggle," wrote MKMVA national executive member and spokesperson Carl Niehaus.
The association also pointed out that the governing party was the leader of the alliance and deserved to be respected as a "leading socio political force in society".
"We sincerely hope that instead of proceeding along their current errant path, this 14th national congress will help the SACP to self-correct and re-affirm the required fundamentals of our revolutionary tri-partite alliance," continued Niehaus.
The MKMVA wished the SACP well.
