SACP statement following bimonthly Political Bureau meeting

25 June 2024

“President Cyril Ramaphosa needs to move swiftly to appoint the Deputy President, Ministers and Deputy Ministers”, concluded the South African Communist Party (SACP) bimonthly meeting held on Monday, 24 June 2024. The SACP Political Bureau emphasised the importance of meaningful consultation and building and maintaining national stability and certainty. This requires decisiveness against any section that has resorted to trickery, brinkmanship and untenable demands to steal power and thus undermine the will of the people.

While the ANC did not receive the minimum of 50 per cent plus one required to form an outright majority government, it is important for everyone to recognise that it still has been voted the largest electoral party by voter support. The SACP Political Bureau denounced attempts by the DA, a party with a little over half of the ANC’s votes, at elevating itself to or usurping the role of the party with the largest votes.

Any success from the trickery, brinkmanship and untenable demands by the DA will be tantamount to undermining the will of the people and stability in our economy and country. This neo-liberal party, whose leadership composition starkly reminds us of the persisting legacy of racism due to the stark contrast between their racial composition and the national population demographics, has to face deep-going working-class mobilisation, as will any slightest rightward shift in government policy direction.

The DA has positioned itself against the government of national unity, which the ANC seeks to form. This is obvious from the DA’s manoeuvres to secure a hostile takeover through a grand coalition with the ANC, also involving the IFP, in which the DA will wield veto power under the guise of “sufficient consensus”. This must not be allowed to see the light of day.

The DA’s trickery, hypocritical and untenable demands vindicate the SACP, which has on the record expressed strong opposition to a coalition with the DA. In doing so, the SACP made its preferred option of an ANC-led minority government with the features of a government of national unity clear.

The DA’s trickery, brinkmanship and untenable demands tend towards the division of the Cabinet, which would be akin to a federation of unaccountable ministers if there were to be one part of the Cabinet which would operate separately and accountable to the DA as its “ministers”, rather than adhering to the unified whole Cabinet outlined in the constitution. According to the constitution, the Cabinet is appointed by the President, to whom the executive authority is vested. It includes the Deputy President and Ministers, together with whom the President exercises the executive authority.

The DA’s demands fly in the face of the constitution and labour law. A party that has claimed to support “the separation of party and state” is now vehemently demanding the exact opposite. It has pretended to have a problem with “cadre deployment” and anti-constitutionalism, but it is now demanding that the President must accept new practices which would amount to an exclusive DA cadre deployment.

In a leaked letter of demands addressed to the ANC Secretary-General, dated 24 June 2024, the DA further demands that “Directors General in departments reporting to the Democratic Alliance ministers are selected by panels consisting of the Democratic Alliance ministers, and submitted to the President for his approval, and that such approval cannot reasonably be withheld” – note, not unreasonably. To pave the way for this anti-constitutionalism in favour of its exclusive cadre deployment policy, the DA is also demanding that the contracts of current DGs must be “reconsidered” – meaning terminated.

The DGs are, correctly so, not rightless. They are covered by the hard-won labour rights enshrined in our constitution and labour law and have a defined tenure. Any arbitrary termination of their contracts would amount to an abuse of the DGs, who are unlikely to be passive. Such abuse will also lead to wasteful spending of public resources. The SACP will stand in solidarity with the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union in the fight to protect their rights against such violation, just as it stands for the rights of all workers.

The SACP Political Bureau has approved final preparations for the first Party Central Committee plenary scheduled to take place from Friday to Sunday, 28–30 June 2024. In its focus, the SACP Central Committee plenary will conclude with a press briefing on Sunday, 30 June 2024. Solly Mapaila, the Party General Secretary, will lead the National Office Bearers with the Secretariat as the core in communicating the key outcomes of the meeting, including the initial strategic tasks and tactical steps for moving forward after the 2024 elections.

Mass mobilisation, forging a popular Left front and building a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor will, among others, receive greater attention from the Central Committee plenary. “This mobilisation is crucial for the people, the majority of whom is the working class, to realise progress in resolving the problems that affect them the most”, concluded the Political Bureau.

It is pretty obvious that the top priorities that the people need exclude the DA’s trickery, brinkmanship and untenable demands. The priorities include immediate efforts to achieve large-scale employment creation, poverty eradication and radical reduction of income, wealth, racial, gender and spatial inequalities. To achieve this, the priorities include a high-impact, comprehensive industrialisation policy, adequately supported in terms of both resourcing and an enabling macro environment by developmental fiscal, monetary, international trade, infrastructure development and other developmental policies. In townships and rural areas, people want equal development attention comparable to that received by those in developed metropolitan areas. Effective delivery of public goods and services, with the productive participation of the people, is crucial in all this.

Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, National Spokesperson, SACP, 25 June 2024