The South African Communist Party has rejected a proposed commission of inquiry into claims of a plot against axed deputy president Jacob Zuma.
”We are not convinced that a commission will adequately deal with these problems,” said SACP spokesperson Kaizer Mohau.
”As the SACP, we believe that there are much more fundamental issues underlying the problems that have emerged around the treatment of comrade Zuma. These issues have led to various perceptions, and can only be dealt with effectively through collective political engagement.”
The SACP took the decision at a two-day meeting attended by national and provincial leaders that ends on Saturday.
President Thabo Mbeki proposed the commission in a letter to an 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 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.
Mohau said the SACP will present what it perceives as the ”underlying problems” around the Zuma saga at the alliance’s next meeting.
He also strongly rejected reports that the alliance is divided into ”pro-Zuma” and ”pro-Mbeki” camps.
”The alliance as a whole are, to use the media’s term, Zuma supporters. The SACP regards the unity of the ANC and its allies as of paramount importance,” Motau said.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (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 felt Cosatu had jumped the gun by rejecting the commission.
The ANC’s national executive committee meets next week, when the commission is expected to be discussed. — Sapa