By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
South African Communist Party (SACP) Secretary-General Solly Mapaila says the party will not respond in a hostile way to the threat by the African National Congress (ANC) to their members who hold dual membership of both parties.
The ANC has given dual members ten days to declare which group they will support in the upcoming local government elections.
Tensions between the two parties have been escalating since the SACP decided to contest elections independently for the first time in a democratic South Africa.
The ANC has been at pains trying to convince the communists to reverse their decision, but it has failed and decided to respect their decision.
SACP secretary-general Solly Mapaila reiterated that the party had always supported the ANC on a conditional basis rather than an unconditional one.
“We used to be independent and contest elections before the apartheid government banned us. Now it is as if this decision is so tectonic, it is shattering everything.”
We have said it clearly in 1993, that if there is a degeneration of liberation movement, degeneration in discipline, if there is chaos like the chaos we are seeing in ill-discipline, in corruption, and others, that we will have to consider that commitment as the SACP.”
Mapaila added that the ANC “threatening” action against members who do not pick a side is an anti-communist political move that changes the image of the ANC as they know it.
“It amounts to an attempt to reinterpret the alliance and dual membership in a narrow, electoral, and one-sided compliance terms. It seeks to reduce a historic strategic relationship forged in a bitter struggle for national liberation, with shared blood, sacrifice, and shared values, into a one-sided demand for subordination and permanent support from an ally, while never considering reciprocating the same support for a single moment, or literally, a single second of time measurement.”
He, however, clarified that the SACP’s rejection of the ANC’s decision is not a rejection of discipline but of control.
“We reject it as there is no genuine alliance can be sustained based on coercion by one partner exercising its independence but coercing another against exercising its independence. We reject it because the strategic alliance has never meant the liquidation of the Communist Party into the ANC.”
He further reiterated that the problems facing the national democratic forces are not due to the SACP’s decision to contest elections but rather stem from broader political failures.
The ANC’s relationship with the SACP can be traced back to the 1920s and solidified over the years, leading to the formation of the tripartite alliance.