The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Western Cape is poised to suspend Mazibuko Jara from the party after dissolving the Cape Town Metro District structure he was serving in last weekend.
This is the second time Jara has been in trouble with party structures — he was expelled from the Young Communist League (YCL) two years ago.
The YCL failed then in a bid to get him removed from its mother body.
Simultaneously Jara’s troubles are linked to bigger tensions in the alliance in the province where the SACP is in conflict with leaders who are seen to be flirting with ‘ultra-left†elements.
SACP provincial secretary Khaya Magaxa recently wrote a letter accusing Cosatu secretary Tony Ehrenreich of turning Cosatu into a right-wing organisation and sidelining the SACP to accommodate his ultra-left friends.
‘The renegade Tony has made it part of his programme in the political stock exchange of issues to make sure that Cosatu operates as many miles away from the SACP as possible. The SACP in the province has been consistently sidelined from the Cosatu Job Losses Campaign because Tony’s friends in the fringe ‘left coalition’ [read ultra-left] had to be the strategic partner for the campaign,†Magaxa wrote.
The SACP Western Cape district held a meeting of its branches and the provincial leadership at the weekend at which it was resolved to dissolve the district leadership structure and to recommend the suspension of Jara.
Jara and Western Cape district secretary Noluthando Nogcinisa were accused of having compiled a report critical of the SACP’s last congress. The report was subsequently rejected by the branches.
Magaxa said Nogcinisa had voluntarily resigned from the party at the meeting. But Nogcinisa disputes this, saying he was writing a letter to the party’s central committee to appeal against the process that led to the meeting and about its constitutionality. He said he had been advised to adopt this route by senior party leaders.
However, supporters of Jara see his imminent suspension as part of a pattern to silence dissent in the party. ‘The post-Polokwane triumphalism has reinforced Stalinisation and is increasingly reflecting in undemocratic behaviour. Committed activists who have engaged the SACP leadership on the Jacob Zuma issue or have tried to define a more independent politics for the SACP are being dragged into disciplinary hearings,†said a party activist.
Jara supporters believe that more individuals and structures that support the stance of the SACP contesting elections on its own could be isolated ahead of the mid-year special conference where the SACP has to finalise its position on this issue.
However, party officials at Cosatu House are also convinced that there are a few individuals based in Cape Town and Johannesburg who have not accepted the outcome of the party’s congress in Port Elizabeth last year and are actively working to undermine it.
Magaxa said the provincial executive committee would take the final decision on Jara as the district structures did not have power to suspend him.
Jara said he could not comment as he did not attend the meeting because he was away at the weekend.
The party’s central committee has also disbanded its provincial structure in Limpopo because it was dysfunctional, according to party spokesperson Malesela Maleka.