SACP rejects propaganda, reaffirms that will never beg President Zuma to reinstate Dr Nzimande to the Cabinet
The South African Communist Party has noted and denounces with contempt propaganda by information peddlers purporting that the Party met with the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) to beg President Jacob Zuma to reinstate Cde Blade Nzimande to the Cabinet. The SACP wishes to put on record that it has never begged President Zuma to reinstate Dr Nzimande and that it will never do so. What the SACP has done, and correctly so, is to reject President Zuma’s factional reshufflings of the Cabinet – two this year, one in March and another in October.
The SACP also rejected President Zuma’s growing unilateral leadership that increasingly marginalises the principles of collective leadership, democratic consensus seeking consultation and accountability. The SACP reiterates its Central Committee finding that the increasing authoritarianism displayed by President Zuma marginalising not only the alliance but also the ANC by merely informing it of major decisions while he should consult reflects an act of a desperate man who is increasingly resorting to desperate manoeuvres. This takes place in the context where South Africa is facing serious challenges of state capture and corruption and there is mounting pressure to act against the decay and for President Zuma to step down.
The SACP further reiterates its 14th Congress resolution that the manner in which the alliance functions will not be able to hold going forward and that the only way in which the alliance can survive and fulfil its historical mission is if it is reconfigured. It is completely unfair and unprincipled for a single alliance partner or its leaders, and worse off for a single individual leader or a faction, to monopolise decision-making riding on and exploiting our hard-won democratic gains and shared national democratic revolution.
We all, constituting our collective national liberation movement, fought for the achievement of democracy in our country against colonialism and apartheid. We all campaigned tirelessly since the first democratic elections to secure the electoral victories enjoyed by the ANC. Our democracy must be consolidated and deepened in line with the Freedom Charter’s principle that ‘The people shall govern’. It is unacceptable to allow this vision to be ruined.
Statement issued by the SACP 8 November 2017
