South Africa: Beast is in the Open, Say ANC Allies
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
9 October 2008
Posted to the web 9 October 2008
Karima Brown and Hajra Omarjee
Johannesburg
THE African National Congress's (ANC's) leftist allies yesterday condemned attempts by former defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota and other ANC leaders to form an alternative political party, saying "finally the beast is in the open".
South African Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande said an alternative to the ruling party was a "right-wing splinter by a spoilt group which was overly dependent on power and control".
"It's a coalition of the elite who can't accept democracy and that the ANC leadership is not about an aristocracy of princes and underlings."
Mere months before the election, the ruling party is facing rebellion following the recall of former president Thabo Mbeki.
Loyalists in the Mbeki camp have gone on the offensive, claiming they have been "purged" from the ANC and punished for backing Mbeki's bid last year for a third term as party president .
Lekota has been the public face of the discontent and has borne the brunt of public spats between him and senior ANC leaders.
Nzimande said the SACP saw the breakaway effort as a consequence of "class interests being threatened".
The disgruntled faction was a coalition of people who felt "entitled" to control the ANC and have access to resources, he said.
Nzimande said Lekota had refused to accept the democratic outcome of the ANC's elective conference in Polokwane.
"Under their leadership the ANC had been demobilised and we saw a marginalisation of the allies. The extent of the alienation saw the workers, youth, communists, women and former soldiers unite against this," he said.
Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi described Lekota's plan as "a road to an endless winter in the wilderness".
Both Nzimande and Vavi said dragging Lekota before a disciplinary committee for fomenting organised dissent within the ANC was a "waste of oxygen". Vavi advised Lekota that "it's never too late to change your mind".
Nzimande said the ANC and its allies had long known that the formation of an opposition party was in the offing because Mbeki's supporters had planned to break away if they lost the party's presidential race.
"As the SACP, it is our understanding that there have been preparatory meetings to form this party since January this year. This is not new. The breakaway of the PAC (Pan Africanist Congress), the group of eight (a breakaway group of exiles expelled in 1975) and the latest formation of the United Democratic Movement are but some of the historic breakaways we have had to deal with and defeated in the past," Nzimande said.
He contradicted Lekota's assertion that the leadership under Mbeki allowed dissenting views, saying that Lekota personally presided over an eight-hour interrogation following Nzimande's statement that the SACP accepted the view that HIV caused AIDS.
"History will judge us badly for tolerating AIDS denialism ... I was insulted and roasted for eight hours in a national executive committee meeting chaired by Lekota for saying HIV causes AIDS," Nzimande said.
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Vavi said Lekota's new party was "without substance" because it stood for nothing. At a policy level, Vavi said, "I don't know what this party is going to do. They have had a chance to address poverty, unemployment and crime. Even though they had an all-knowing leadership, they did not succeed."
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