Howard Barrell
The African National Congress has turned down a South African Communist Party request for a meeting between their leaders this week to discuss serious disagreements between the parties that emerged last month.
The SACP had hoped the parties could get together before a two-day meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), which begins on Friday. But ANC representative Ronnie Mamoepa said on Thursday that no meeting of ANC and SACP leaders was planned.
Both President Nelson Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, who now leads the ANC, reprimanded the SACP last month for attacking government economic policy and implying that some ANC leaders were obstacles to transformation.
The SACP has five Cabinet ministers and two deputy ministers in the government. Some 80 MPs are SACP members elected to Parliament on an ANC ticket.
Mamoepa said the ANC received the SACP’s request only after details of it had been published in the Mail & Guardian last Friday. The SACP said it faxed it three days earlier.
The SACP had hoped that, if a meeting could not be held this week, it might be tagged on to the end of this weekend’s NEC meeting. Mamoepa’s statement indicates that this is not envisaged by the ANC.