General Secretary of the SACP,
Central Executive Committee members,
ANC National Executive Committee members,
Cosatu Secretary General
Comrades delegates,

I bring fraternal and revolutionary greetings from the African National Congress national executive committee and its membership.

We bring good wishes to the SACP as it holds its special congress.

This congress is taking place during a very critical period in the history of the Alliance. It is a period during which there is an intense focus on the relations amongst the Alliance partners.

Various interests within the Alliance are engaged in a robust political engagement and debate about the role of the Alliance and its focus during this era of freedom and democracy. It is however not the first time that this has taken place. This Alliance has always been a subject of scrutiny, analysis and debate, because of its unique nature, its strength and impact.

We pride ourselves as the Alliance on being able to bring together so many various strands of political thought into one political family. We pride ourselves on being able to accommodate heated and intense debates and opinions about the Alliance or its various components. Many formations would fall apart if they were to have members who are as vociferous in their thoughts and expression of such thoughts as members of the Tripartite Alliance.

However, the reason we are able to hold this Alliance together, is the traditional focus on discipline, unity, respect for the autonomy of each partner and the respect for each member of the Alliance component regardless of their position in the movement.

The 52nd national conference of the ANC confirmed, as did previous conferences, re-affirmed that the leadership role of the ANC places on it the primary responsibility to unite the tripartite alliance and all the democratic forces. We will continue to play this role, as the leader of the Alliance. What has also always made this Alliance to function well is the respect for the individual autonomy of components.

You will recall that the 52nd conference confirmed the assertion that we should respect the right of individual Alliance partners to discuss and arrive at their own decisions on how they seek to pursue their strategic objectives.

The conference also confirmed that consistent with this principle, the ANC will continue to determine, in its own structures and processes, how best to advance its own strategic objectives.

We have also always said that the unity of the Alliance is paramount, under the leadership of the African National Congress. Unity is now more important given the changed objective conditions we operate in. Before 1994, the roles were clear amongst Alliance partners.

We had one common enemy. We had to fight and dismantle apartheid oppression and bring about freedom and democracy to our people.

When this was achieved we moved into another phase, of building a better life for all our people, ensuring total transformation of the State and society to ensure that we remove the remnants of apartheid and racism. In building a better quality of life, we had to work together as Alliance components, led by the ANC; to introduce government programmes that we believed would achieve these objectives.

We have done well over the past 15 years. The record speaks for itself and our people know that too, as shown by the manner in which they keep returning the ANC to power every five years. We however remain honest to our people, and tell them that while we have achieved a lot, much more still needs to be done, and that working together we can achieve more.

In saying "working together we can do more", we also include working together with alliance components. This then brings us to the question of the role of the SACP in this phase of the national democratic revolution.  Has the SACP truly and fully engaged with the question of its role in assisting the ANC government to succeed in implementing its programme of action?

We ask this as we are in a fluid phase, in which the party can be tempted to find itself in the borderline between constructive criticism and being in opposition to the African National Congress, the leader of the Alliance.

Our detractors are very keen to see a continuous quarrel between the party and the ANC and are keen to see continuous counter criticisms and squabbles.
It is therefore very crucial that we revive and strengthen what we used to talk about during the struggle, the iron discipline of the party and the clarity and political depth that the SACP has always provided to the Alliance.

We are in a more challenging environment as we have to navigate lots of interests. What needs to be clear is that the ruling party is no longer a common enemy of the Alliance as it was during the apartheid era, but is an ally of the components of the Alliance.

When the Alliance was established, the founding comrades did not envisage the Alliance finding opponents or opposition within its own components. It would be a new thing altogether. Our view is that we must not lose focus with regards to our priorities as the Alliance. In various election Manifestos, include the 2008 one, we clarified our programme of action and presented it to the electorate.

In 2009 we said we would focus on five priorities. We said people would see a difference in health, education, rural development and land reform, the fight against crime and the creation of decent jobs. We have set out to work tirelessly to achieve the objectives of improving the delivery of programmes and services in these five areas.

We need the support of the Alliance to fight these common challenges.  In this regard, we really must ask if the party has really defined its role seriously in a democratic post-apartheid society?

I repeat this question because our view is that the Party cannot just see itself as a pressure group. It should play its historical role and provide robust and profound intellectual and ideological debate to the Alliance.

The party ought to play a role in making suggestions in what we can do better. We ask this of the SACP for historical reasons. It has always played this role.  We are reminded of the response of Inkosi Albert Luthuli once when asked why he works with the communists. He said they are most reliable, disciplined and always ready to sacrifice at every given time.

Inkosi Luthuli was correct as SACP members were never known for destructive criticisms, and when in the ANC, they never used the fact that they were communists; the ANC was always paramount as the leader of the Alliance.

The communists took full responsibility. If the ANC had failed, they identified with the failures and became part of sharing the blame, correcting the mistakes and sharing the successes. That talks to the iron discipline that we speak about, which other members of the components ought to learn from the SACP.

Comrades, in working out our respective roles in this phase of the national democratic revolution, we need to clarify the rules of engagement.  For us to be able to focus on the implementation of the Manifesto, there are some tendencies that we must clearly correct within the Alliance.

It is critical that we do that because if we do not do so, we will introduce a new culture of chaos and lack of respect for the individual components of the Alliance and members.

We re-emphasise that discipline is the guiding principle and is the thread that must continue to run through this movement to ensure that we maintain comradely relations.
The leaders of the three components of the Alliance must lead and guide the membership of the components.

They need to assist the components not to look for enemies amongst alliance components, and should remain vigilant and not allow a foreign culture to creep into our Alliance.

We must engage each other with dignity, honesty and with respect. The public outbursts and acrimonious exchange are not in the tradition of the Alliance.

The tendency to engage or deal with members in the media and public platforms instead of through usual channels is foreign and should not be allowed to continue.
We must continue to support a vibrant exchange of ideas and  a culture of critical analysis on issues, but we must also commit to, and practice the culture of principled debate.

The Alliance is too deep-rooted and entrenched to be disrupted by activities or statements of a few of its members. The Allies must instead focus on the primary task of uniting our people and uplifting them from poverty and deprivation. An Alliance that is seen to besieged with tension, squabbling and conflict does not inspire public confidence.

As the leader of the Alliance the ANC will play its role to ensure that we all operate optimally in defence and consolidation of our freedom, and in meeting the goals of building a better life for all our people.

The Alliance components also have a responsibility to defend the ANC, to support it and strengthen it. The success of our revolution has in past, and will in the future, depend on the strength and cohesion of the ANC-led Alliance. This is an Alliance in which the components continue, as they did in the past, to act swiftly and efficiently to support and complement, and not to compete with one another.

Comrades, it is important to protect the image of our Alliance at all times. We must not create an impression that the Alliance is in the intensive care unit.

The Alliance is alive and well, it is fully functional and effective. It has the capacity to withstand individual mistakes and errors of judgement, and will withstand any turbulence that comes its way.

We just need to ensure that we do not spend our time dealing with turbulence that can be avoided, through enforcing discipline, unity and respect for one another.
Comrades, we must rather focus our energies on the matters at hand, the implementation of the ANC election Manifesto.

We said in the Manifesto that we have to ensure that we grow the economy. We said lasting victory over poverty and hunger requires the creation of decent work opportunities and sustainable livelihoods. Together we agreed that education must be at the centre of our efforts to improve the potential of every citizen and enable each one of us to play a productive role in building our nation.

We added that the quality of services that the government will provide must be improved.  We also told the electorate that our fight against crime will be a key priority, to ensure safer and more secure communities.  We said we would strengthen our criminal justice system and enable our police force to deal decisively with crime.

We also pointed out that rural infrastructure development and agricultural reforms were at the heart of our plan to improve our country's food security.

Working together we must ensure that all these undertakings become a reality, and that they are delivered to the people of South Africa.  The SACP congress should hopefully provide guidance on how the party will contribute to assist us to meet these objectives.

Working together we can ensure proper focus, and success in delivering on our mandate as the ANC-led Alliance.

I thank you.
Amandla!

Statement issued by the African National Congress, December 14 2009

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