Countering revenge will triumph over unity as the key challenge after the African National Congress’s (ANC) national conference in Limpopo this month, the South African Communist Party (SACP) said on Saturday.
”The best kind of revenge is to intensify the struggle for a better life,” SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said on Saturday.
He was speaking at the unveiling of the tombstone for Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) martyr Barney Molokoane at the Merafe Primary School in Tlali, Soweto. Molokoane died in 1985.
Although the event was intended to honour Molokoane’s accomplishments in the struggle to free the country from apartheid, speaker after speaker used the opportunity to talk about the ANC leadership struggle.
It is important those elected in Limpopo not be ”tempted to vanquish their perceived opponents”, added Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi. ”Such an approach will not heal the movement, but only serve to widen the gulf of divisions,” he said.
Although ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma — a front-runner for the ANC’s top job — was supposed to attend the ceremony, he was understood to be overseas.
”In Polokwane, we will elect a quality leadership who can hold each other accountable,” said Tokyo Sexwale, who has denied accusations of bank-rolling Zuma in the leadership race. ”If they fail to perform, we will use our power to recall them,” he said.
Molokoane served MK’s elite special operation unit, which conducted operations against symbols of apartheid such as Sasol and the Voortrekkerhoogte army base in Pretoria, said Vavi. ”[He] died fighting rather than surrender to the apartheid security forces.”
It was an act of bravery that inspired thousands of MK soldiers and South Africans yearning for freedom and democracy, he said.
Court bid
Meanwhile, a failed high court bid to stop the ANC conference will now be taken to the Supreme Court of Appeal, it was announced on Saturday — despite the Johannesburg High Court’s refusal to grant Votani Majola leave to appeal its dismissal of his application to have the conference postponed for six months to ”level the playing field”.
Majola, who is a member of the ANC’s Sandton branch, argued that amid intimidation and harassment, the political climate was not conducive to the holding of elections.
However, the court found he had not proved any violations and said it would intervene only when all remedies to resolve the ANC’s internal conflict had been exhausted.
”We will approach, on an urgent basis, the Supreme Court of Appeal for assistance,” Majola said in a statement on Saturday. ”The court will decide on what should happen.”
The ANC will choose its new leaders at the conference, which runs from December 16 to 20. — Sapa