The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Western Cape supports an electoral pact between the party and its alliance partner the African National Congress to be allocated at least 30% of seats after next year’s elections.
After a special council meeting in Khayelitsha on Saturday, the provincial branch of the party said it also wants a debate on whether it should contest the elections in its own right when it meets for its national policy conference later in September.
The party said that allocation of the seats to the SACP would give it the power to make SACP members deployed to Parliament accountable to it and not the ANC, and would enable it to push for its pro-poor policies.
It believes these have been placed on the back burner in favour of more neo-liberal policies.
”The question that has to be settled is how our party cadres account to the SACP whilst serving in legislatures, Parliament or councils under the ticket and the discipline of the ANC.”
The party cannot be served with its members being subjected to the discipline of the ANC, its statement said.
”It is against this background that the SACP in the Western Cape resolves that the party in the 2009 elections must be represented by its own deployed cadres within a reconfigured alliance in all institutions of governance and administration, including but not limited to national and provincial parliaments.”
The party also wants only two tiers of government — national and local.
It said it was disgusted by South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni’s 27% pay increase and called for him and his two deputy governors, who received increases of 66% and 72%, to be removed.
It also called for a review of inflation targeting, a range of inflation for which the government aims in order to keep interest rates low, as well as a review of Gear.
For its annual Red October campaign, it chose the theme Know Your Neighbour, and will work towards rebuilding the ”struggle traditions of participatory democracy in our communities” and unite the alliance from there. — Sapa