Umsebenzi Online Volume 21, Number 7, 9 September 2022

Red Alert In defence of an all-rounded renewal, unity and discipline, to serve the people

By Solly Mapaila

Our movement at the helm of democratic transformation to change people's lives for the better, eradicate poverty and radically reduce unemployment and inequality, is facing the challenge to transform itself and sharpen its critical instruments of change. The movement needs to develop and refine its cadres to play that role, to redefine their relationship with and serve the masses, the ultimate motive force of change. This task requires a movement determined in its objectives, devoid of factional interests, with a firm leadership to ensure all-rounded renewal and unity.

Will the Alliance partners use the rare occasion of their highest decision-making bodies convening in the same year to secure an all-rounded renewal and unity, or will the movement falter? 

Recent developments across the movement have exposed major weaknesses. Equally worrying is that this occurs when the movement should deepen its renewal and unity, using the rare occasion of all Alliance partners holding their national congresses, for the ANC a national conference, in the same year.

In mid-July, the SACP held its 15th National Congress. At the end of September, COSATU will hold its 14th National Congress. The ANC will hold its 55th National Conference at the end of the year. As part of the process, it held its 6th National Policy Conference at the end of July.

The question that arises is whether the highest decision-making bodies of the Alliance partners will contribute to or produce an all-rounded renewal and unity, inclusive of the reconfiguration of the Alliance. Will the movement falter on this critical task? This is the related question.

What is certain, though, is that rhetorical affirmations with no implementation will keep us mark-timing. Likewise, positive posturing without action will not help to turn things around.

Like all organisations, families and individuals, not a single Alliance partner can claim that it has no challenges to overcome and problems to solve. To be sure, the SACP knows fully that it has room for considerable improvement itself.

However, of all the Alliance partners, the recent ANC regional and provincial conferences, and the developments that followed afterwards, attracted most attention, and certainly not only from the media. This was not only because the ANC is the governing party in those provinces and nationally.

To make the point clear, on a lighter note several media practitioners said at the SACP National Congress that it was almost entirely not "newsworthy". There was voting for the Central Committee. However, as the media practitioners said, what most attracted media coverage like a strong magnetic force to the recent ANC regional and provincial conferences like no other en masse was absent at the SACP National Congress. Indeed, few of the media practitioners and houses, if any at all, covered the SACP provincial congresses, needless to mention district congresses.

The ANC is our strategic partner and organisationally at the forefront of our Alliance and shared electoral platform. What happens in, to and about the ANC has implications, and even ramifications, for the entire Alliance and the broader electorate who we mobilise to support the ANC in every election. Hence, we must, with no fear or favour, zoom in on what happens in, to and about the ANC.

Worrying developments against renewal and unity

While it is not the only one in this category, the ANC Ekurhuleni Regional Conference is perhaps a typical example of what the media practitioners meant when they said something "newsworthy" was missing at the SACP National Congress. David Makhura, then the ANC Gauteng Provincial Chairperson, characterised the ANC Ekurhuleni Regional Conference as akin to a warzone.

Because of the fierce contest that occurred between mutually opposed slates and intensified hostilities by the groupings causing delays, with no prospects for recovering lost time and exhausting the delegates, who direly needed to rest, the ANC Gauteng and North West provincial conferences had to be adjourned and reconvened at later dates. At the conferences held, the contest started with disputes over credentials, which took a long time to be adopted. When this happened at the ANC Ekurhuleni Regional Conference, a group of ANC members took up chairs-as in "taking up arms". In the North West Province, the contest headed to the court.

Having analysed the negative developments that dominated the regional and provincial conferences of the ANC, the SACP Central Committee Plenary held at the end of August expressed deep concern about the persisting worrying signs that move against the renewal and unity of the ANC and reconfiguration of the Alliance. The worrying developments within the ANC persist against the background of declining electoral support, amidst perceptions of leaders who are viewed as only concerned with themselves when the capacity of the government to provide basic services is declining or erratic.

The decline in the ANC's electoral support continued in the November 2021 local government elections, resulting in the ANC, notably, losing the Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane metros. In what appears to be a refusal to learn from history, the Mangaung metro has been embroiled in ANC internal squabbles, compromising the provision of basic services to communities. Among others, the council could not form a quorum because of the warring factions.

The hotly contested ANC provincial conferences brought to the fore a new cohort of provincial executive committee members who immediately displayed impatience. They started exuding entitlement to positions in the government by virtue of their new positions in the ANC. This impatient cohort of provincial executive committee members could not wait but started manoeuvring right away after their election in the ANC to remove and replace those who are in the provincial government, with some MECs who were on the opposed side of the contest ranking high among their targets. The SACP rejects this posture with the contempt it deserves.

On 4 September, the news broke: "ANC PEC HAS DECIDED TO RECALL PREMIER DAVID MAKHURA – REPORTS" ). The press briefing that followed to give "clarity" ("Makhura exit: It is not a recall, it is a 'transitional handover process', ANC Gauteng insists" ) was water under the bridge. The factionally charged message had hit the newswires, exposing what many believed was the real story.

Meanwhile, in early August, on the 5th to be specific, Sihle Zikalala resigned as KwaZulu-Natal Premier after a hotly contested provincial conference. He stood for the position of the Provincial Chairperson and did not make it. Just after the conference he was humiliated at a stadium. A choreographed song calling on him to go (resign as the Premier) hit the stands.

Surely, there is no way a reasonable person can agree that the continuing acts of factionalism, divisions and entitlement represent ANC renewal and unity. This is nothing but the continuity of factional decay, self-centred interests and possibly a new round of state capture. The national leadership of the ANC, and the Alliance, are called upon to rise to the occasion to stop the factional manoeuvring displayed by those who contested positions as a launching pad to capture government office.

The forthcoming ANC National Conference should not hold sway for national leadership to bury their heads in the sand, to avoid intervention and upsetting possible backers. A leadership position in the ANC or any Alliance partner should not entitle any person to a deployment in public office.

It is also important to take seriously the allegations of money politics that rocked the conferences already held. The culprits must be identified and dealt with to set an example of ethical conduct and discipline.

With some slates possibly lined up by profit-driven interests, it could as well be that certain individuals received financial backing from businesspeople who in return want government tenders. Not unrelated, it has now become common knowledge that as part of the money politics the movement is also contested by monied criminals. If they emerge victorious, they obviously will want to see their stooges elevated to public office. We need more vigilance and scrutiny of those identified for public office and other roles.

The rush to replace those who are in public office while their term is not over could lead to a manipulation of government tenders and other public resources if not a new round of state capture. In the true sense of renewal and principled unity based on a revolutionary programme, in exercising vigilance we must mobilise society at large to study the Auditor-General's reports thoroughly. As Alliance partners, we must build a leading role across society, intensify public mobilisation to hold the government accountable and clamp down on any manipulation of public resources.

All structures of the SACP must intensify the mobilisation as a matter of urgency. While state action is crucial in fighting corruption, societal mobilisation is essential, also as part of real action to build a popular left front, a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor, and to reconfigure the Alliance programmatically on the ground.

Weaponisation of the "Once charged in a court of law step aside principle"

The self-serving battles within the ANC have taken a new shape since the highly welcome, albeit belated, implementation of the "Once charged in a court of law step aside principle". We adopted the "step aside" principle in 2012 to deal with the ethical decay that had crept in, affecting deployed members, some with serious crimes like murder. Some factional elements seem to have resorted to weaponising the well intentioned "step aside" principle, combining it with rogue operations, to smash their opponents.

We must confront the manipulation and decisively defend the revolutionary letter and spirit of renewal and unity.

Implications beyond the ANC and a strategic response in defence of genuine renewal and unity

The wave of factionalism that we see against renewal and unity has negative implications not only for the ANC but also for the image of and the imperatives to reconfigure the Alliance and fight corruption, notably corporate-capture. We use the term corporate-capture here to refer not only to state capture as it has become widely conceived of but also to organisational, political, ideological and personal corruption and capture by the profit-driven interests who sponsor factionalism.

The factions undermine not only the ANC but also the Alliance, its reconfiguration, meaningful consultation to seek democratic consensus and the wider electorate who vote for the ANC. If reshuffling becomes necessary, it must be a product not of factional manoeuvres and accommodation of newly elected leaders but a genuine product of science-based performance monitoring and evaluation and filling of vacancies that arise because of valid reasons, including clamping down on corporate-capture and other forms of corruption. Also, such a reshuffling must be based on extensive, meaningful consultation.

Strategic response against the destructive forces emerging victorious

In "The South African Struggle for Socialism", a 2022 iteration of the SACP Programme discussed by the Party's National Congress, we said we will not stand aloof from, but we will actively support the ANC's renewal and unity process to secure its success. However, given the contradictions and contestation affecting the process, we also noted that a positive outcome was not guaranteed.

The success or failure of the process will come from the balance of forces, which is influenced by a wide range of factors. For example, should factionalism, corporate-capture and money politics emerge as the dominant force, the outcome will be terrible, as indications already show.
There is no way we can support all that. For there can be no principled unity with thieves and corrupt and captured elements. We will have to follow a different strategy-but taking every step with and for the working-class as a single revolutionary force.

Policy change and inviolable ties with the masses as the pillars of all-rounded renewal and unity

Renewal and unity and reconfiguration of the Alliance must be an all-rounded organisational, political and policy process, as opposed to papering over the cracks or malicious compliance, including deploying factional accomplices from other partners.

To serve the people, an all-rounded renewal must be underpinned by both theoretical and demonstrable practical commitment to roll back neoliberal policies. It must advance a national democratic revolutionary policy framework, to take forward, decisively, the Freedom Charter and other emancipatory declarations of the movement.

An all-rounded renewal and unity process cannot be confined to the organisational renewal and unity of the ANC and reconfiguration of the Alliance conceived of in narrow terms. It must include, as a critical pillar, building and expanding inviolable democratic ties with the workers and poor on the ground in their everyday struggles, based on a revolutionary programme.

It would, amongst others, require an inclusive rectification posture that values the experience of the many (side-lined) cadres who are among the most well trained politically and ideologically with a rich history of the struggle. These cadres are found amongst our revolutionary stalwarts, of all races and genders, across the Alliance, former uMkhonto weSizwe combatants and underground activists, and retired honest leaders and officials from different roles in the government and other institutions and organisations.

Rectifying our style and methods of work, advancing self-correction

There will always be challenges in the national democratic revolutionary transformation and development process. While others will be systemic, others will result from collective errors. Yet others will be created by certain sections within our own movement, as factionalism shows.
We must improve our analytical alertness and study of the challenges we face, to rectify our style and methods of work, correct and strengthen ourselves to overcome them. These difficulties will need cadres steeled to stay the course, for the people, with the working-class as the majority, to emerge victorious.

Going to the root of the matter, factions and internal challenges as outcroppings of systemic underpinnings and structural drivers

A socialist system has to emerge to save our people from hunger, degradation, squalor living conditions in the land of plenty, exploitation and climate change-all of which are driven by capitalist barbarity.

The factions and the many internal challenges facing our revolution in no small measure also reflect the deepening crisis of capitalism in our country. This is their economic basis, and their political economy revolves around competition for control of public resources amidst the persisting crisis-high levels of racialised and gendered capitalist system engendered inequality, unemployment and poverty. 

Onwards ever to socialism or forever in capitalist barbarism!

Together, let us build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor.

• Mapaila is the SACP General Secretary

End notes or references

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