By Lebone Rodah Mosima and Charmaine Ndlela
The Conference of the Left has begun at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg on Friday without the participation of the African National Congress (ANC), after the governing party dismissed the gathering as “a coalition of negation” aimed primarily at opposing it.
The three-day conference, convened by the South African Communist Party (SACP) and other left-wing organisations, is being held under the theme “Building a Left Movement for Working Class and Popular Power”.
Parties expected to attend include the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) and the Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA).
In a statement released ahead of the gathering, the SACP said the conference was not intended to establish a new political party or impose ideological uniformity, but to “strengthen coordination, unity in action, political education and organised struggle among diverse left, working-class and popular formations”.
The party said the conference was convened in response to worsening conditions facing the working class, including rising unemployment, poverty, inequality, austerity measures and privatisation.
“The Conference of the Left convenes on the understanding that the crisis facing South Africa is fundamentally a crisis of capitalism and that only organised working-class power can chart a strategic way toward genuine liberation and socialism,” the SACP said.
