Attempts to ”smear the names” of leaders of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) was a part of ”the struggle”, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said on Friday.
Nzimande was addressing the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) 10th congress in Durban.
Whether he was referring to allegations, following a weekend media report, claiming that a Pretoria businessman had accused Nzimande of embezzling a R500 000 donation was not clear.
After addressing delegates at the Sactwu congress, Nzimande refused to answer questions from the media about the issue.
He said: ”The SACP is dealing with the matter.”
However, during his speech he said that the SACP had ”emerged” from one of its most successful congresses and that ”attempts to smear SACP and Cosatu leaders was a part of the struggle”.
He said the SACP would not allow itself to ”be undermined” by some of its own members, whom he described as ”business communists”.
Referring to the African National Congress’s upcoming 52nd national congress, to be held in Limpopo in December, Nzimande said he hoped that the ANC would ”elect a leadership to lead this alliance”.
”It can’t be that we campaign for the ANC and afterwards key decisions and deployment are left at one centre. The ANC is not owned by those who occupy leadership positions at any given time.
”We must ask what kind of ANC leadership emerges [at the congress].”
He said the ANC was faced with challenges, ”especially since 2000”.
He again ruled out any split in the alliance, although he conceded at a press conference after his address that relations between the ANC and the SACP had been ”bumpy”.
He said a split with the ANC would ”leave the ANC in the hands of the bourgeoisie”.
On Thursday, the ANC’s deputy president, Jacob Zuma, told the Sactwu congress that inclusion of the SACP and Cosatu in the alliance with the ANC prevented the government from ”tilting to the right”. — Sapa