Outcomes of the Western Cape Provincial Executive Committee meeting
6 September 2016
The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Western Cape convened its Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) meeting on 3 September 2016 at the Trade Union House in Athlone, Cape Town. This was the first ordinary meeting of the PEC post-2016 local government elections. The PEC dedicated most of its time at the meeting to reflect on the election outcome and the state of developments. The meeting took place at the time when the SACP is launching its Annual September Membership Recruitment Month, coupled with our programme to deepen political education about the necessity for socialism as the only sustainable solution out of capitalist exploitation and misery. Related to this, the PEC discussed the state of working class organisation and paid particular attention to the state of the trade union movement as the elementary organisation of workers.
The national democratic revolution
The PEC discussed its organisational, political and ideological tasks in taking forward the party programme to take responsibility for the NDR, the direct route to socialism in the country’s historical conditions. Taking responsibility for the NDR requires constructive analysis of both objective and subjective factors facing the revolution.
The PEC called upon all communists to be at the forefront of defending and consolidating the gains of the NDR. The challenges we are currently facing must not demoralise us but must, on the contrary, serve to strengthen our determination towards complete national liberation and social emancipation. Communists have played one of the most important roles in our struggle and revolution, despite attempts by reactionary elements to subvert the people’s efforts and interests by advancing their own business and personal interests. As the SACP we are determined to soldier on in the fight against the strategic opponent of our revolution, monopoly capital, and deviant tendencies within our own ANC-led political movement!
Recent local government elections
The SACP wishes to convey its sincere gratitude to our party’s Red Brigades and alliance volunteers for their hard work during the elections campaign. This campaign was fought under extremely challenging conditions. We further commend the ANC in the Bitou for successfully reclaiming the municipality.
We are however particularly concerned with a coalition formed between the so-called Democratic Alliance (DA) and the ANC in the Kannaland Municipality. This marriage of convenience cannot be justified. It exposes the lack of ideological understanding that is besieging the ANC and stifling its revolutionary fibre. The SACP in the province calls for this irrational coalition to be abandoned and for those found guilty to be held accountable.
The PEC noted that ANC branch structures in the province are still dominated by extreme divisive and destructive factional tendencies that use elections dispense patronage and gain factional hegemony and not to advance popular people’s participatory democracy.
The SACP in the province reiterates our call, made at our previous Provincial Council, for the ANC Regional Secretary of Boland to be subjected to the due process of disciplinary action for failing to register candidates in eleven wards as well as allegations of amending candidates lists post-elections. The PEC acknowledges that these actions, which undermine the integrity and principles of the ANC, its membership and communities, are a product of deep-seated factional operations emanating from various quarters and cliques, including that of the office of the Provincial Secretary of the ANC.
The PEC deliberated upon the brazen influence, nationally, of the Guptas on our democratic national sovereignty. The meeting expressed grave concern about poor governance and looting of or favouritism at state owned enterprises, crass accumulation and display of wealth and arrogance in the face of the triple crisis of unemployment and poverty based on capitalist inequality. These tendencies tend to escalate the growing social distance between leadership, officials in government and broadly in state organisation on the one hand and on the other our mass constituencies.
Numerous and contradictory media statements by the ANC in the province
The PEC noted with concern the numerous and contradictory media statements released by the ANC from almost five different sources. This exposed the ANC’s internal weaknesses and can only expedite weakening the ANC in the province. The recent public spat between cliques in the ANC PEC tends to relegate and neglect the importance of advancing the objectives of our movement. Further, it is extremely worrying that the Provincial Secretary of the ANC unilaterally removed the ANC’s provincial convenor of media and communication in such a public and undisciplined manner. We urge the ANC to ensure decisions are taken through constitutional decision-making structures and not broadcast on public platforms.
We therefore call for calm and maximum discipline and request that NEC members deployed to the province guide the ANC through this challenging period and ensure that the Western Cape is not utilised as a stage for factional positioning towards the 2017 ANC National Conference. We further call on a special delegation of NEC members to be deployed to the province to decisively deal with destructive factional trends in the organisation.
The SACP will aggressively expose and actively isolate all elements that are derailing the implementation of the NDR.
Cosatu
The Trade Union Federation and many of its affiliates face serious organisational challenges as a result of a variety of factors. The unity of organised workers is of paramount importance in the face of rising unemployment and the neo-liberal onslaught at play in workplaces. Divided and weak unions result in workers being at the receiving end of this neo-liberal onslaught. As the Vanguard Party, we commit to rebuilding COSATU and its affiliates through our Qina Msebenzi campaign by launching workplaces units in all sectors.
Food and Allied Workers Union
Comrades Ray Alexander Simons and Elizabeth Nana Abrahams, who dedicated their lives to organise and consceintise workers on farms and factories, serve as a testimony to a legacy that has been diluted by divisive tendencies within FAWU’s leadership. The reality is that FAWU in the Western Cape, through its internal wrangling for positions and power, has been largely confined to servicing industrial workers but not at a high quality standard to the neglect of highly exploited farm workers. The Party pledges it solidarity FAWU members in the province for the principled stance that they had taken not to leave Cosatu and for exposing attempts at purging outspoken members and liquidating the union. The SACP reiterates its principled stance that workers divided will be defeated and calls on workers to unite organisationally and build a strong trade union federation in Cosatu!
Crime
The recent release of the crime statistics confirms the adverse effects of unemployment and in equality in our communities and their link with crime. The fact that seven out of ten areas in the province have produced the highest crime indicators is proof that the Western Cape government is incapable of taking responsibility and addressing the scourge of violent crimes and gangsterism. Instead, the DA’s government continues its deflections and costly cosmetic public relations efforts. The recent gang fights in Delft have left 31 people dead in 31 days! The PEC reiterates our earlier position that government, regardless of which sphere, must reintroduce the neighbourhood watch which was a viable tool in fighting crime.
Non-elective Special ANC conference
It is clear that we cannot continue to do the same thing whilst hoping for a different result. The reality is that the low voter turnout in our strongholds is a result of among others the widespread problems of corporate capture of state owned enterprises, in the state and in the political movement broadly; perceptions that the ANC is led by corrupt individuals; factionalism; membership manipulation; self-serving leadership and serious campaigning weakness. As long as the ANC alliance is not fighting to assist in delivering on the aspirations of our people and actively campaigning to overcome the challenges facing our communities, our movement, as led by the ANC, will remain weak in the province.
The PEC reiterated the recent call made by our Central Committee for the convening of a non-elective, special ANC national conference including alliance partners and the wider ANC constituencies and support bases to consult on the way forward and turnaround strategy in the face of the declining hegemony of the ANC. The PEC added that such a conference must be preceded by a similar efforts at regional and provincial levels. The PEC further called for an urgent convening of a Provincial Alliance Summit to filter the decisions and actions required from the National Alliance Summit and assist in building a campaigning and revolutionary ANC in the Western Cape.
Issued by Masonwabe Sokoyi, SACP Western Cape Provincial Spokesperson, 6 September 2016
