SACP Western Cape Provincial Council Statement
The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Western Cape held its Provincial Council on 17 September, 2016 in Intsebenziswano SSS, Phillipi. In attendance were delegates from Units, branches, and districts as well as PEC members.
The Provincial Council noted that:
The Provincial Council takes place immediately after the Local Government Elections.
There were challenges in the Alliance in general and COSATU in particular with FAWU being the latest COSATU affiliate to disengage from COSATU.
Capital has become bolder and more aggressive in assailing the state and advancing the agenda of monopoly capital through in the main political tools like the DA.
State security structures are being used to persecute the leadership of the Party as well as other Alliance leaders who distract and expose the comprador bourgeoisie and others who are bent on seeking to misappropriate state resources for personal gain.
International Front
The Provincial Council condemned the right-wing hostile take-over of political power in Brazil through the manipulation of the constitution in that country to remove a democratically elected president.
The Provincial council unequivocally voiced its solidarity with the struggles of the Kurdish people for self-determination, and further condemned the removal of legitimate Kurdish mayors in Turkey using the failed coup as a pretext to purge democratically elected leaders.
1996 Class Project
The Provincial Council recalled that during the tyrannical days of the 1996 Class Project, South Africa had a jobless growth and the gap between the rich and the poor widened, leading to South Africa becoming the most unequal society in the whole world. To this effect the Class Project through the implementation of narrow Black Economic Empowerment neither sought to democratise nor transform the economy but only to de-racialise it leaving structures of exploitation either intact or reiforcing with growing inequality including among Africans in particular and black people in general, between black and white and women and men.
The New Tendency
The Provincial Council noted that the New Tendency used the ANCYL as its henchman to arrogantly tackle anyone who seemed to reject its agenda to abuse state power for rampant accumulation. The Mangaung ANC Conference in 2012 neutralised the opportunistic New Tendency, however, the aggressive greed for a rampant accumulation of state resources found a new vehicle epitomised by the “Premier League” which amongst others uses ill-gotten state resources to reduce conferences of the ANC into auctions that sell the ANC to the highest bidder.
Western Cape Political Reality
The Provincial Council noted that the leader of the Alliance in the Western Cape remains fractured as its internal divisions have kept deepening since the Provincial Conference which was steeped in factional practices involving the use of money and invariably gave rise to a divided leadership. The internal weaknesses of the Leader of the Alliance further led to a string of blunders and miscalculations which were reckless in approach towards local government elections as more time was invested in attending to candidate selection disputes and disagreements than in canvassing and campaign work.
The Provincial Council, therefore, calls for the ANC to hold an early provincial conference to ensure the strengthening and reinvigoration of the ANC in Western Cape Province.This call is not based on disrespecting the leader of the alliance in the province, but is informed by our observations of the ongoing challenges it has faced after its conference and the divided PEC it has produced.
2016 local government elections
The 2016 local government elections were the most difficult since 1996. The political environment was polluted by amongst others two factors being: corporate capture of the state as evinced by the strong perceptions that the Gupta family that is in business partnership with the President’s son, is not only unduly benefiting from state resources but is also controlling Cabinet appointments; and the dominant narrative that the Constitutional Court decision on the Nkandla security upgrades proved the averments that the President had not only unduly personally benefited from the upgrades but had also violated his oath of office.
State Power Debate
The Provincial Council noted that contradictions have sharpened between the Party and the ANC. The Provincial Council further re-emphasised that the Party has not ruled out contesting elections by itself. However, the Provincial Council counselled that the discussion on state power should be allowed to be concluded in the Party before a position on whether to contest elections in the 2019 national government elections is taken.
Statement issued by Masonwabe Sokoyi, SACP Western Cape Provincial Spokesperson, 18 September 2016
