By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
African National Congress (ANC) Deputy Secretary General, Nomvula Mokonyane, says it’s all systems go for its BRICS Political Parties Dialogue scheduled to begin on July 18.
South Africa will host the historic 2023 BRICS Political Party Plus Dialogue under the theme “BRICS and Africa: Partnership for mutually accelerated growth, sustainable development and inclusive growth”.
The dialogue will focus on key areas such as, global peace and security; inclusive multi-lateralism; strengthening BRICS and expanding its membership; and partnership for mutually accelerated growth, sustainable development.
Among the guests to arrive for the summit in Johannesburg, starting July 18 at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, include Jaoquim Chissano of Mozambique, Olesegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast.
Invoking one of the pillars in the ANC, “Better Africa, Better World”, the summit is expected to forge alliances, party-to-party and intra-party, bilateral and multilateral relations to deepen internationalism, solidarity, peace and friendship.
“There has been a quite hive of activity in South Africa on the diplomatic front. On this front the ANC subcommittee on International Relations hosted a number of political parties and foreign missions to forge collaborations and cooperation in various fields,” said Mokonyane on the sidelines of the party’s National Executive Committee meeting in Johannesburg.
She said the formation of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is aimed at consolidating the countries’ capacity and growing the global economy.
“We want to do away with the issue of dominance and diversify and give the world options. The expansion of BRICS shows that the world is not static and geopolitics of the world is not static”, she said.
Mokonyane said the party is not bothered by Western countries and their criticism of the position of the South African government as it relates to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
BRICS politics are building up in the run-up to next month’s Summit and the international row over the warrant issued for the arrest of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
As a member of the ICC, South Africa would be expected to arrest Putin if he sets foot in the country.
There had been speculation that Pretoria was considering moving the talks to China to avoid being put in the position of having to arrest Putin.
The arrest warrant is a diplomatic dilemma for Pretoria, which has been close to the Kremlin since the anti-apartheid struggle years.
South Africa has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it is impartial and prefers dialogue.
Mokonyane says the country remains non-aligned.
“Historically we have remained nonaligned not only because of any relationship that we hold with Russia today but because of our own historical perspective around the issues of a unipolar world against nations and our own experience of exploitation and colonialism as well as the arrogancy of those who assume that if you say you are non-aligned it means we have taken sides,” she says.
“We have not taken sides and hence you can see through the actions of our government, all parties have been listened too and all parties have been given the same observations that we are making and what we believe can be a solution to what is happening in the world and therefore we are not faced by being accused of being nonaligned as it is the correct decision made by the party and our government.”
“We have a resolution to remain in the ICC but review our participation, there are processes that are unfolding there without undermining such bodies,” adds Mokonyane.
She notes that the dialogue meeting is not about Putin but about the countries meeting.
“It is not about paving a way but it’s about dealing with issues of the geopolitical development in the world as well as the issues of militarism and the transformation of the institutions,” she says.
“It should not be something that is only attributed to whether if Putin is coming through or not as that will be also unfair to the African National Congress.”
On Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed that next month’s BRICS summit will not be a virtual one but will be held in person.
“We are going to have a physical BRICS summit, all of us are committed to having a summit where we will be able to eyeball each other, we have not held a physical summit for… almost three years. It’s not going to be virtual,” he stressed.
Meanwhile the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have accused ANC of intolerance for not allowing them to be part of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) Political Party Forum.
The governing party opted to snub the EFF from the forum, scheduled to take place from 18 to 20 July.
Ruling parties from the BRICS nations are expected to be part of the forum. Other parties aligned with those parties have also been invited.
Watch Live in the video below:
Video Courtesy of MYANC.