ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has conceded that his party has failed to convince its oldest alliance partner, the SACP, from contesting elections on its own.
As the country gears up for the local government elections, the SACP, led by its general secretary Solly Mapaila, has already started testing the waters by contesting against the ANC in by-elections across the country.
This as the SACP has decided to stop contesting elections under the banner of the tripartite alliance, which includes the ANC and Cosatu.
A special ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting on Friday has to discuss what this decision means for members on the ground who possess both ANC and SACP membership as campaigning for the local polls gets under way.
Mbalula has described the decision by the SACP as traumatic but insists it does not necessarily mean the alliance is now broken.
“For those who have studied psychotherapy, I don’t know whether to characterise this as a continuous traumatic disorder in itself. This experience of getting the SACP having to contest,” said Mbalula.
We know that even post elections the Communist Party will not probably be inimical to the ANC and so on for whatever reason that they decided to stand but at the end of the day will remain an ally of the ANC
— Fikile Mbalula, ANC secretary-general
“It’s traumatic, I must say — so tense. I think I can bury it in that context that indeed we are tense — [it’s] not an easy moment, and it’s traumatic. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to handle it politically and with principle and at the same time preserve the alliance.
“We know that even post elections the Communist Party will not probably be inimical to the ANC and so on for whatever reason that they decided to stand, but at the end of the day will remain an ally of the ANC.”
The ANC constitution, however, does not allow dual membership for people who are contesting against the ANC for power. This was one of the reasons the ANC presented when it terminated the membership of its former president and now leader of the MK Party, Jacob Zuma.
It is unclear how the ANC will treat the dual membership issue when it comes to SACP members who will be campaigning for the SACP in a contest against the ANC in the various municipalities across the country.
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa at the Limpopo provincial conference warned of serious consequences for those with dual ANC-SACP membership if they do not campaign for the ANC in the lead-up to the local government elections.
He said those with dual membership would have to pick a side during the campaign season, and those who picked the SACP would be brought to book.
How are you going to relate, now and post the election, the practicality of that decision? That’s what the NEC seeks to answer; not whether or not we agree. We have passed that stage
— Mbalula
“When you align with yourself with another organisation, and you don’t campaign for the ANC, and we see you campaigning for another party, now you are going to get yourself into big trouble with us, and first of all with me because I expect you to campaign for the ANC,” said Ramaphosa.
While Mbalula echoed these sentiments, saying those with dual membership would have to pick a side, he said he did not view this as a break-up between the ANC and SACP.
He said the NEC meeting on Friday will have to discuss exactly how the relationship between the two alliance partners who are now officially opposition parties will be managed practically.
“Again, the question you must address is: how do you then maintain, politically, the cohesion of the alliance? Because we don’t talk about breaking of the alliance. We talk about an experience of an ally, a political party, vanguard of the working class, standing in an election on its own, for whatever reasons they want to advance, which the ANC failed to persuade them out of it,” said Mbalula.
“Therefore how are you going to relate, now and post the election, the practicality of that decision? That’s what the NEC seeks to answer; not whether or not we agree. We have passed that stage. We have failed to convince the Communist Party not to contest for an election. But that contest comes with ramifications.”
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