The souring relationship between the ANC and its alliance partners seems to be a reality after the SACP’s youth wing the Young Communist League, threatened to contest elections on its own.
As if that is not a deterioration of the pact enough, the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) president Collen Malatji took a swipe at SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila, saying he should focus on forming his own structures and stop hiding under the ANC before calling the party “sell-outs”.
Malatji believed that a statement by Mapaila was populist, saying if he had a problem with the structure of the Government of National Unity (GNU), he should immediately withdraw their deployees and prepare to win the next elections on their own, so they could implement their own policies without the influence of other parties.
Responding to the ANCYL president, the Young Communist League’s first deputy national secretary Tsietsi Letsebe said the SACP was not afraid of contesting elections on its own against the ANC and other parties.
Letsebe said the party was not pleased with the ANC’s decision to enter a coalition arrangement with the DA excluding other parties.
“No leader of the SACP is in Parliament. All leaders who are in Parliament are deployed through the ANC, and everybody who is there is selected through the process of the ANC.
“Nobody represents the Communist Party in Parliament. The only person that represents the party and sets out the party position is the party’s general secretary, Solly Mapaila, on this matter of the GNU,” the Young Communist League leader said.
He said all MPs were deployed there through the ANC’s candidacy process and list.
“The current chairperson of the SACP is deployed in Parliament as a member of the ANC in his own right. I maintain my point, everybody who’s deployed in Parliament is deployed by the ANC.”
According to Malatji, the youth league was closely monitoring the progress of the GNU, adding that the organisation was deeply disappointed with Mapaila’s recent remarks, who labelled the ANC "sell-outs" for its decision to invite all political parties to form part of the GNU.
The SACP’s general secretary described the ANC’s decision to enter into the GNU with the DA as a “betrayal” and a “sell-out of the aspirations of our people” during an interview on SMWX with podcaster Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh.
Malatji reminded critics that the ANC failed to garner 50% plus of the vote to form a government.
“Let’s remind you that the ANC wasn’t given a full mandate by South Africans to govern on its own. That’s why we find ourselves under the GNU, which includes the SACP,” he said.
These assertions come at the backdrop of the National Education, Health Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), another ANC ally, withdrawing its R2 million lawsuit against the ANC and KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo’s comments accusing Nehawu-affiliated workers of contributing to poor service delivery in the public sector.
The Star