Trade unions and communist leaders have launched a combined counter-attack on what they describe as an ”authoritarian clique” in the African National Congress led by President Thabo Mbeki and including two Cabinet ministers.
South African Communist Party and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) leaders emerged from an SACP central committee, meeting at the weekend to denounce the ”clique” which, they said, was trying to force the break-up of the ruling alliance.
Addressing Cosatu’s 17th birthday celebration, federation president and SACP central committee member Willie Madisha said Cosatu was ”particularly concerned about the emergence” of the ”small but loud authoritarian clique that sees any disagreement with government policy as a threat”.
The grouping ”does not yet threaten the alliance, it is the only grouping in the alliance that is working for a split”, Madisha said.
”The influence of this grouping is on the rise. Its divisive tendencies will do more to weaken the democratic movement than any amount of disagreement over economic policies … if by some mischance this clique comes to power, we can kiss goodbye to the national democratic revolution, the alliance and even our democratic gains so far.”
Reading from Cosatu’s political report, released this week, general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said not even former president Nelson Mandela had ”escaped” from being a target of the ”clique”.
ANCleaders say that central to the authoritarian grouping are Mbeki and ANC national executive committee (NEC) members Essop Pahad, also Minister in the Office of the Presidency; Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza; ANC Youth League leader Malusi Gigaba; Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula; fired KwaZulu-Natal MEC for housing Dumisani Makhaye and disgraced former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni. The late Peter Mokaba had also been included.
During an intense debate in the SACP’s central committee, the group was accused of viewing ”left” as an ”irritation” and of attaching no value to the unity of the alliance. Communists argued that the group used labels such as ”ultra-left” as part of a campaign to stoke controversy and crisis.
It is understood that a Mbeki interview in The Star on April 26 1995, where he predicted the alliance partners would go their separate ways within 10 years, was discussed at the central committee meeting.
Younger and more radical members of the SACP leadership raised the question of whether the party should consider hiving off from the alliance because of persistent attacks. Many members expressed unhappiness at the ”clique’s” perceived attempt to portray the SACP as ”an enemy clothed in red”, and its socialist agenda as a ”dangerous conspiracy”. Older members, including Brian Bunting, counselled against a breakaway.
At a media conference SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said: ”We are convinced that the great majority of ANC and alliance comrades, regardless of their various shades of political opinion, are extremely uncomfortable with the excessively polemical, labelling interventions that have characterised recent weeks.”
Describing the clique’s characteristics, Cosatu said it saw any attempt at engagement as a threat to its power, it was intolerant, abusive, ”beset with paranoia” and distorted the positions of its opponents. It saw dissent as disloyal or ”counter-revolutionary”.
The SACP central committee concluded that the ANC was an organisation of the left — a fact backed by the recently concluded policy conference where left positions were taken on several issues.
In its discussion paper, Cosatu insisted the ANC had historically been a ”left movement”. However, it had been the site of ”continual class battles to determine the dominant hegemony … The vast majority of ANC members and leaders will support a working-class perspective, but a substantial and powerful minority continue to push to the right.”
The document alludes to a drastic change in the composition of the ANC’s NEC, with the movement of several leaders, some of them trade unionists, into business. Few ”still live in the townships, send their children to historically black schools or take taxis to work”, it said.
The ANC’s national spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama dismissed allegations of a ”clique” as a ”figment of the imagination”.
He said ”the ANC is the ANC” and ”will deal with any attempts and tendencies whether from the extreme right or the extreme left to hurt the ANC and each of its Alliance partners.
”We are in the process of cleansing each of the alliance partners of these tendencies.”