22 November 2015
By Lizeka Tandwa
Factions in the tripartite alliance have picked up where Julius Malema left off before he was expelled from the ANC, though with less skill, SA Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande said on Sunday.
"The present obituaries [for the alliance] have been occasioned by the statements and posture of a factionalist group... Although with less skill [than] where Julius Malema was forced to leave off following his belated expulsion from the ANC," he told reporters in Benoni after the SACP's central committee meeting. He said the SACP had observed that during transitional periods of ANC leadership, the SACP becomes the 'first target of attack'.
"Always during this period of the end of term of presidents of the ANC, more stresses and strains come out and often the Communist Party becomes the first target of attack and this recruits unnecessary strains because we have kingmakers...," Nzimande said.
This however did not mean the alliance would collapse.
"We are concerned about the state of the alliance as we always do, because sometimes it goes through its own challenges, but that does not say that the alliance is going to collapse."
Nzimande said tackling problems in the country requited unity in the alliance.
"But this... [is] unfortunately tainted by some factionalist behaviour that is threatening to put a stress on that unity." He said the SACP would raise these concerns at the next meeting of the alliance political council.
Tired of defending Zuma
He said the alliance needed to try and forge a common understanding heading to the 2016 local elections.
Nzimande's comments follow a heated battle public spat between the ANC Youth League and the Young Communist League, specifically in relation to the succession debate for ANC president.
The ANCYL wanted Nzimande suspended for allegedly opening up the debate on who would succeed Zuma, and for apparently insinuating that the SACP was tired of defending Zuma.
The SACP has maintained that Nzimande did not open the succession talk. Malema was president of the ANCYL before his expulsion. He now leads the Economic Freedom Fighters.
Earlier in the month former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe told the Business Day that the tripartite alliance between the SACP, the ANC and the Congress of SA Trade Unions was dead, and anyone who believed otherwise was delusional.
Source: News24