The Jeremy Cronin saga, which last month dominated the SA Communist Party’s national congress and threatened the relationship between the ANC and its SA Communist Party ally, ended dramatically at the weekend when he apologised unconditionally to the ANC’s national executive committee.
ANC representative Smuts Ngonyama announced Cronin’s about-turn at a press briefing on Monday on the organisation’s NEC meeting.
Cronin’s criticisms of the ANC in an interview with a foreign publication formed part of the discussions at the NEC meeting.
Cronin himself released a statement saying the unqualified apology he made for the contents of the interview ”was neither coerced nor tactical”. Cronin said the apology had been made sincerely and as a matter of principle.
Reading from a statement, Ngonyama said: ”The NEC concluded that it was wrong and unbecoming of comrade Jeremy Cronin as a member of this body to misrepresent and question clear decisions of the NEC, such as the briefing notes on the alliance distributed to ANC regional general councils which were a product of extensive debate in at least two consecutive NEC meetings”.
Cronin conceded that the controversial interview’s tone and the discussion of many internal matters outside the organisation had been a mistake.
”What I regret about the interview is that the undisciplined handling of serious issues can, precisely, undermine the fostering of robust debate, criticism, self-criticism and unity within our movement, not least between communist and non-communist ANC members,” he said.
Stressing that Cronin’s matter had not been a disciplinary hearing but ”a normal business matter”, Ngonyama said it would be wrong of anyone to think there was any stifling of alternative views or independent thinking within the organisation’s NEC.
”The NEC reaffirmed the right of every member to raise and debate issues with and within the structures of the movement, and reiterated that it is impermissible for any member to discuss ANC internal issues outside of the structures.”
Meanwhile the SACP has also come out in support of Cronin in his ”principled stand and his preparedness to apologise” and said it would take the matter up at its forthcoming central committee meeting.
”The SACP upholds the right of our respective formations (the ANC as much as the SACP) to submit members to organisational discipline, regardless of their positions in any other allied formation,” the SACP said. – Sapa