The South African Communist Party started a two-day meeting on Friday to discuss issues including a proposed commission of inquiry into claims of a plot against Jacob Zuma.
Party spokesperson Kaizer Mohau said the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ (Cosatu) stance on the matter would also be discussed, as well as resolutions adopted at the SACP and Cosatu’s recent central committee meetings.
President Thabo Mbeki proposed the commission in a letter to a tripartite alliance meeting convened last week to discuss the Zuma saga.
He said the alliance should set up the commission to establish whether ”members of the ANC [African National Congress] and broad democratic movement, including the president of the ANC, had been and are involved in a conspiracy targeted at marginalising or destroying deputy president Zuma”.
Some members of the alliance, including Cosatu, believe there is a politically inspired conspiracy to stop Zuma from becoming the next president of the ANC. He is seen as being too close to the working class.
Cosatu president Willie Madisha told reporters on Thursday the federation’s central executive committee had rejected Mbeki’s proposal because the ”commission of inquiry on its own can’t resolve the underlying political problems we face”.
If a commission were established, it should look at the entire operation of the tripartite alliance and not just one person, he told reporters in Johannesburg.
Both Cosatu and the SACP have said they are unhappy with Mbeki’s letter being made public, as it was meant to be confidential.
The letter was read out at the end of the alliance meeting and not discussed. It appeared on the ANC’s website two days later.
ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said his party feels Cosatu jumped the gun by rejecting the commission.
”We feel it is unfortunate that Cosatu has rejected the proposal before engaging,” he said. ”We were hoping to go to an alliance meeting where we would discuss all issues.”
He said he does not believe the ANC will ”go it alone. It is still too early to think that way.”
Regarding the way forward, Ngonyama said the ANC will make its ”final position” known at a pending alliance meeting.
The ANC’s national executive committee meets next week, where the commission is expected to be discussed. — Sapa