By Thapelo Molefe and Simon Nare
The ANC has rejected participation in the upcoming “Conference of the Left” convened by the South African Communist Party (SACP).
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula accused the initiative of being a political project aimed at undermining the governing party.
Addressing the media after a meeting of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) on Tuesday, Mbalula said the ANC would not attend the conference scheduled for the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg from Friday to Sunday.
“The ANC will not participate in this conference,” Mbalula said.
“We have, however, invited the leadership of the SACP to a principal level engagement on the underlying questions in the standing discipline of the alliance.”
Among the parties that have confirmed attendance are the Economic Freedom Fighters, Umkhonto weSizwe Party, Azanian People’s Organisation, Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, Mayibuye Afrika, Socialist Party of Azania, Bolshevik Party of South Africa and the National Coloured Congress.
The ANC’s decision comes despite organisers describing the gathering as an effort to unite progressive organisations around a shared programme advancing working-class interests and opposing neoliberal economic policies.
Organisers said the conference sought to “unite the forces of the left in constructing and crystallising a shared campaign-based programme” focused on the emancipation of the working class and the transformation of society.
The steering committee insisted the conference was not intended to replace existing left organisations or create a new political party.
“The conference is not an attempt to undo the existing organisations of the left nor undermine their work,” the steering committee said.
“It seeks, rather, to create a framework to coordinate, elevate and strengthen their work through a common platform and common programme.”
According to organisers, the conference will include political parties, trade unions, social movements, youth organisations, environmental justice groups, solidarity economy organisations and international socialist formations, with 14 political parties, 14 trade unions and three union federations already registered to participate.
But Mbalula strongly disputed the characterisation of the gathering as a genuine left formation, saying its composition reflected an anti-ANC coalition rather than a coherent ideological project.
“We say openly to our country the ANC does not consider this convening to be a conference of the left,” he said.
“The composition is itself the political argument. A gathering that proposes to seat chambers of commerce alongside the Bolshevik Party, the Umkhonto weSizwe alongside Azapo, business formations alongside trade unions, is not a left formation in any received meaning of the term.”
Mbalula further questioned whether organisations attending the gathering could genuinely be classified as left-wing formations.
“Ideologically, we don’t think it’s a forum of the left. We think it’s just a protest of people coming together and then wanting to talk about everything under general, but over and above that this conference of the left to us ideologically outside the ANC and the alliance is not left,” he said.
“If you look at the composition of people who are there, we characterise here that that can’t be something that constitutes left. Civil society forum of people who are going to come together and propose, you can call it that, but left is debatable and we make that respectfully. It’s not.”
Mbalula described the conference as “a coalition of negation” united primarily by opposition to the ANC rather than a common programme for social transformation.
“It is a political project dressed in theoretical clothing,” he said.
Mbalula also linked some formations associated with the conference to individuals implicated in State Capture, referencing findings by the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture.
“The convening forces have chosen to associate themselves at this gathering with formations whose principal leadership figures were identified by the Judicial Commission of Enquiry into Allegations of State Capture, the Zondo Commission, as central to the wrecking of South African institutions,” Mbalula said.
He listed institutions including Eskom, Transnet, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) as among those allegedly damaged during the state capture period.
Mbalula repeatedly questioned the ideological consistency of parties and organisations behind the conference, saying many had previously defended coalition arrangements with parties outside traditional left politics.
“The notion that we come together because we are left, it has long been thrown out of the window by those who are proponents of the left conference today,” he said.
Referring to coalition politics in municipalities including Johannesburg and Tshwane, Mbalula said some organisations now championing left unity had previously argued that ideology should not determine political cooperation.
“When Johannesburg was lost in the hands of the ANC and in Tshwane, we were told by people who call themselves left that we must not bring that notion into the picture about left politics,” he said.
“There is nothing left about coalition politics.”
In what appeared to be a reference to the EFF, Mbalula said some parties attending the conference had previously accused the ANC of embracing the National Party (NP) in order to justify coalition arrangements with the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Johannesburg and Tshwane.
Mbalula also accused some political actors involved in the conference of seeking to weaken the ANC electorally.
“Their strategic objective is to defeat and destroy the ANC,” he said.
“Their strategic objective is to destroy the ANC. They have failed to destroy the ANC and they will never destroy the ANC even going forward. When the ANC invited them to the Government of National Unity, they started to play the rhetoric of the left. We said to them no man there is no left here, say something because we are working with everybody.”
Mbalula said the ANC would formally communicate its position to the SACP and would not devote further energy to the matter.
“We are not going to attend that conference. We have received the invite and we will write to the SACP and tell them that. Anyway, we were invited to speak for five minutes in that conference. It is not a platform that we think the real left of our country deserve to occupy themselves with,” he said.
Despite the sharp criticism, Mbalula maintained that the Tripartite Alliance involving the ANC, the SACP, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) remained intact.
“The alliance has stood the test of time. The alliance has stood the test of personalities,” he said.
He added that the ANC would engage directly with the SACP leadership over the matter rather than escalate tensions publicly.
“We are not going to spend our time and energy on it, so we are not attending that conference,” Mbalula said.
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