Weak administration, leadership and service have been cited among the reasons for the party’s decline
Howard Barrell and Jaspreet Kindra
The South African Communist Party goes into its strategy conference this weekend having lost as many as four out of five of the members it recruited after being unbanned in 1990.
The party currently has 13E803 paid-up members, according to one of the discussion documents for the conference, entitled Towards a Party Building Strategy and a Quality Party. This figure, it notes, “indicates a decline from the 80E000 paid- up members we had some years ago”.
But, the document claims, “between 5E000 and 7E000 signed-up members [are] expected to pay up in the next six months”.
These figures help explain the evident recent decline in the SACP’s influence over the African National Congress and within the tripartite alliance, which also includes the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
The document paints a dismal picture of the state of the SACP’s organisation, of the appeal of its political positions, and of its members’commitment and administrative abilities.
Explaining the SACP’s decline, the document says many of the party’s former members were “lost” to the ANC, Cosatu, the government and other institutions. Some former members “acquired new class positions” – in other words, moved politically towards the right. Others were “lost because of weak organisation, leadership, service and administration”. And yet others were “lost because they were disillusioned by some strategic and tactical options the party followed in the last 10 years”.
The document says: “On paper we have 30 launched districts and 355 branches. We do not know how many of these actually function.”
It says that an SACP “party-building commission”, headed by general secretary Blade Nzimande, has been “relatively ineffective” and that “very few” members of the SACP’s central committee have taken an active interest in trying to expand party membership. This was partly the result of the low “level of political development of many of our central committee members”.
Its “Red October” campaign last year – designed to jolt the party machine into action – was a “failure”.
In its discussion documents, the SACP says large-scale job losses caused by the restructuring of local government and of the services they provide could seriously harm the ruling tripartite alliance’s performance in the upcoming local government elections.
The changes in local government will entail a reduction in the number of municipalities and changes in the agencies delivering services.
The SACPdocument says of the job losses that will result from local government restructuring: “This could have a very serious impact on the election results, with significant sections of our working-class supporters and their families not voting for us.”
While the South African Municipal Workers’ Union, a Cosatu affiliate, has vigorously opposed restructuring plans – most notably the iGoli 2002 blueprint for Johannesburg – this is the first time one of the alliance’s three members has suggested that the shake-up will harm its electoral prospects.
According to the discussion document, the SACP feels as a party it should focus on the need to negotiate restructuring with all concerned and find an “amicable settlement” to the conflict around iGoli 2002, which has pitted ANC local government representatives against their supposed allies in the trade unions.
In a section dealing with local government elections, the party raises concerns about the tripartite alliance’s candidate list for the polls.
“There is potential for huge conflict here – tensions could well develop between structures of the different alliance partners,” says the document.
ANC circles interpret this as a “pressure tactic” by its alliance partner to muscle in a larger proportion of its members to the list.
The document says many aspects of the government’s macroeconomic policy – such as the restructuring of state assets and the shake up of the public service – “fall short of the mark for workers and the poor”.
One of the more controversial observations by the party is its suggestion that there will be little need for provincial government once the new, stronger system of local government is functioning. The document raises questions about the need to have a provincial government where “a powerful local government exists”.
While similar feelings about provincial government have been voiced privately in government and alliance circles in the past, they have rarely been articulated so clearly and publicly.
There is already a widespread belief that the new municipal structures, besides controlling the supply of essential services, will now also regulate transport, health services and promote tourism and thus duplicate the functions of the provincial government.
SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin says the party has always stood for a two-tier government consisting of national and local government.
However, the ANC-led alliance had to settle for a three-tier to accommodate the more federally inclined Inkatha Freedom Party and the Democratic Party during the constitutional negotiations that preceded the 1994 election.
The SACP’s strategic conference precedes the ANC’s mid-term national general council in July and Cosatu’s seventh national congress to be held in September.