EFF
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY GENERAL
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
THE SECRETARY GENERAL MR. FIKILE MBALULA
Chief Albert Luthuli House
54 Pixley Ka Isaka Seme Street
Johannesburg
29 June 2024
Dear Mr. Mbalula,
RE: BILATERAL MEETING ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH AFRICA'S 7th DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION
Following our bilateral meeting held on the 28. of June 2024 at Inanda Country Club, Johannesburg about the constitution of South Africa's 7. democratic administration, we wish to state our position in writing for the benefit of your internal deliberations. In addition, it serves to avoid multiple interpretations of our oral submissions.
1. The EFF acknowledges the ANC as a progressive movement that has played a gallant role in the advancement of the liberation of the oppressed from apartheid and colonialism, with the emphasis of liberating black people in general and Africans in particular.
2. The EFF characterises the ANC based on its policy of the Freedom Charter and its theory of liberation, the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). We accept that this also means it has pursued to build a nonracial, non-sexist and democratic society.
3. The EFF is committed to the rule of law, supremacy of the constitution, anti-corruption, accountability and transparency.
4. The EFF believes that should the ANC depart from its historic mission as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter and the NDR, and begin to advance reactionary, collaborationist and right-wing political programs, it must be opposed.
5. The EFF is of the view that, based on successive election manifestos of the ANC, in particular the 2024 Elections Manifesto, there is more that brings us together to co-govern and hit the ground running.
6. We recognise that despite differences in tactics and disagreement over the years and most recently, the 2024 elections outcomes present an opportunity to cooperate on the bases of mutual respect and in the interest of building trust, which can only be built in struggle and not in abstractions.
7. The EFF and the ANC have already been working together in coalition government at a local state in the provinces of Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal, Eastern Cape and the Free State since 2022. These governments have brought much needed stability in affected municipalities. This must demonstrate a sensible and logical ground to build trust and cooperation even at a provincial and national level.
8. In light of the above, it is well known that in 2016 and 2021 local government elections, the EFF voted for opposition parties, inclusive of the Forum for Service Delivery, Thabazimbi Residents Association, National Freedom Party, DA, and IFP in municipalities. This was following the EFF and ANC inability to reach cooperation agreements on both occasions, mostly due to the ANC's national leadership's reluctance to entertain EFF's political and ideological propositions.
9. Nevertheless, due to the provincial and regional leadership of the ANC in different provinces where there were hung municipalities, an agreement was developed which saw the EFF and ANC participating in one government. Since this development, the EFF has not turned against its commitments despite the ANC not honouring its commitments in full.
10.In the constitutive meeting of the 7. democratic parliament, we fielded candidates and contested positions of the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and the President following a signed agreement between the ANC and the DA at the time. Our contestation was to symbolically and publicly register our protest and utmost disapproval an ANC/DA alliance.
11.The EFF is willing to constitute and participate in an ANC led government together with other parties, with the exception of the Democratic Alliance and Freedom Front Plus.
12.Our objection to work with the DA and FF Plus rests on the following;
a. The DA and FF Plus represent the imperialist, counter-revolutionary, white supremacist agenda demonstrated by their rejection of progressive internationalism (e.g., Palestine, BRICS, Ukraine, Cuba, Western Sahara), affirmative action, and expropriation of land without compensation for equal redistribution to address the apartheid and colonial land regime.
b. The DA openly wrote to a foreign and imperialist government of the United States of America to interfere and supervise South Africa's democratic elections; an act that outrightly undermines our sovereignty and insults our collective intelligence as a country.
c.The participation of the DA and FF Plus in the GNU only seeks to neutralise the possibility of economic transformation that an EFF and ANC coalition present, such as the creation of a state bank, nationalisation of the South African Reserve Bank, insourcing of workers, free education, healthcare, housing, water and sanitation.
d. The DA and FF Plus openly flirt with the cessation of the Western Cape or Cape Town, and the celebration of the white supremacist history/culture on the recognition of Orania.
e. In a co-government situation with the DA and FF Plus, most of the white leaders of the DA are have demonstrated the inability of taking leadership and authority from black leaders/people - a history that is well documented by many black leaders from within their ranks. They are permanently condescending and regard themselves superior, with the natural right to preside over blacks.
13. The EFF proposes the following:
a. A new agreement, or Statement of Intent between EFF and ANC instead of the ANC's Statement of Intent agreed to by GNU partners. This means, we enter into an agreement with the ANC as leader of government, and not with other parties it may invite to government.
b. Such an agreement, or Statement of Intent must necessarily include key principles informed by the strategic objective of the total liberation of the oppressed as incapsulated in the Freedom Charter and Progressive Internationalism.
c. The agreement, or Statement of Intent must also necessarily include the principles of Redress and Equality as captured in Section 9.2 of the Constitution which states that "to promote the achievement of equality, legislative and other measures designed to protect or advance persons, or categories of persons, disadvantaged by unfair discrimination may be taken."
d. The agreement must translate into provincial and municipal governments with the aim of government stability and accelerated quality service delivery.
e. We give our assurance and guarantee that we shall never work with the DA in any sphere of government to remove the ANC from power where it is elected as leader of the executive or legislature.
f. We are willing to participate in any executive as long as the DA and FF Plus are not included and affirm the principle that the President and or Premiers have the prerogative to determine the composition of the executive after consultation with the EFF leadership.
g. We are opposed to "sealed agreements" wherein Ministries and departments will not be accountable to the leader of the executive, i.e. President and Premiers.
h. We nonetheless express our desire to find representation in all the clusters of national government, as ministers or deputies. We also are willing to take leadership in legislatures in the form of speaker or deputy speakers, and chairpersons of portfolio committees.
We would like to state that we are not in the mission to pursue cabinet positions for careerist purposes. We seek participation that will bring meaningful and historic change to the lives of the oppressed and the people of South Africa as a whole.
We appeal to the ANC to consider this proposal in the interest of the broader liberation of the oppressed. We must collectively take seriously the fact that counter revolutionary imperialist and domestic forces are closing in on the ANC to institute a soft coup and undo historic gains of the oppressed.
No other election has seen so much mobilisation by big business, white owned, foreign and domestic, to financially fund an outcome that will see the ANC not working with the EFF in a coalition. This represents the greatest strategic threat to democracy yet, and the sovereignty of South Africa as a country.
The ANC must consider the fact that despite all the effort by big business and imperialist forces to influence the election towards a liberal outcome, our people still gave the organisations historically associated with the liberation movement over 66% of the seats in parliament. We conclusively advice that the ANC must not work or cogovern with the DA and FF Plus in the interest of its historic mission. This, the ANC must do, even if it believes that the EFF is not its preferred partner.
This moment may not last forever. In the near future, capital may ultimately reduce the liberation struggle forces way below 50%. Our chance at survival rests on pushing forward with the total liberation of our people based on the popular programs of the anti-apartheid struggle.
In the struggle for economic freedom,
SECRETARY GENERAL
CMSR. MARSHALL DLAMINI
