By Simon Nare
The SACP has reiterated its opposition to the Government of National Unity, describing it as a class collaboration between an elite group within the ANC and the DA who have forged to further undermine the tripartite alliance.
SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila, who has been vocal against the GNU, was briefing the media on Sunday after a meeting of the party’s central committee.
He said the highest decision-making structure denounced the ANC’s national officials for embracing the right-wing parties like the DA in the multi-party coalition government.
“The pursuit of the right-wing-including GNU coalition arrangement contradicted our position, shared at [the] alliance secretariat and political council briefing sessions, especially our rejection of coalition arrangements involving the DA and underpinned by a neo-liberal agenda,” Mapaila said.
He said the committee has resolved to mobilise support to oppose neo-liberal and other right-wing policies and forces both within and outside the GNU.
Mapaila said this should not be interpreted as an attack on its alliance partner, the ANC, but rather an opposition against a rightward shift in government policy and its composition.
“However, in no particular way does this mean that we must or will accept the wrong things propagated or advanced in the name of the ANC.
“To give practical effect to this immediately, the central committee strongly denounced the conduct of ANC national officials who, in seeking to justify their embrace of the right-wing and neo-liberal DA in the GNU coalition arrangement, embarked on misinterpreting facts about our party and general secretary, Solly Mapaila, also seeking to isolate him from the SACP,” Mapaila read from the committee statement.
He added that his public statements represented the views of the party and should not be incorrectly be described as “lone voice” as has been the case by ANC officials.
“We will not allow any person, regardless of their position, to export their factional opinions or conduct to the SACP. We will not allow our participation in alliance processes to be misinterpreted as participation in capitalist class consolidation projects,” said Mapaila.
On the reconfiguration of the alliance, which has been a thorny issue as far back as former president Jacob Zuma’s era, Mapaila said the ANC’s unilateral approach to major political and policy questions with partiers like the DA without reconfiguration, would undermine the alliance.
He said since the May elections, the alliance has not met to provide joint pragmatic direction for the manifesto commitments adopted by the alliance partners.
It had also not met to offer strategic collective leadership towards the government’s medium-term development plan for 2024 to 2029.
“The central committee strongly denounced and committed to develop a vanguard role in confronting the capitulation, along with other rightward shifts in or revisionist interpretations of our alliance’s shared commitments,” Mapaila said.
“The socialist axis of the alliance can no longer rely solely on seeking reconfiguration from within. While continuing to build the vanguard character of the SACP, we will intensify efforts to forge a popular left front and build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor.”
INSIDE POLITICS
