HOWARD BARREL in Cape Town | Friday 8.00pm.
THE African National Congress this week turned down a South African Communist Party request for a meeting between their leaders 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, 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.
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 the request through three days earlier.