The South African Communist Party (SACP) will not stoop to mudslinging, character assassination, factionalism and narrow chauvinism with the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), the party said on Thursday.
Tripartite alliance members should focus on defending the unity of the three bodies and on ”core challenges”, rather than on infighting, SACP spokesperson Malesela Maleka said in a statement.
Maleka said the SACP’s call for mature engagement across the alliance, and its unqualified support for the message delivered by President Jacob Zuma to the SACP’s special national congress this past weekend, was being misinterpreted in some quarters.
”At our congress, the SACP’s chairperson, general secretary and deputy general secretary all criticised the disrespect shown to ANC national executive committee member, comrade Billy Masetlha, and to the ANCYL president,” said Maleka.
”We have no intention of retracting condemnations of this behaviour.”
Without mentioning names, he said it was notable there had been ”no apology or even the vaguest hint of self-reflection from some other quarters. Instead, there has been open defiance of the ANC president, with war-drums being beaten,” he said.
After he was booed at the SACP congress, ANCYL president Julius Malema said the league would go to war against the party.
Maleka said: ”There has been no apology for the deliberate and disruptive commotion at our congress, purposely staged in the full glare of TV cameras and news reporters.
”It was a commotion designed to humiliate comrade Gwede Mantashe in his capacity as ANC secretary general. This is not the first time in recent weeks that we have seen attempts to disrupt alliance meetings from exactly the same small clique.”
The SACP rejected attempts in parts of the media to establish some kind of ”balance of misbehaviour”.
”We accept responsibility for any mistakes on our part, and we have always immediately sought to correct them.”
He said the issue was costing the SACP and the alliance dearly.
”We know that the overwhelming majority of ANC comrades, of ANCYL members, of alliance supporters in general and, indeed, of South Africans across the broadest spectrum, know full well where the source of serial mudslinging, character assassination, factionalism and narrow chauvinism lies,” he said.
Maleka said the alliance should defend the Freedom Charter’s principles.
”As in the past, the SACP calls on alliance partners to implement individual declarations of interest by all leadership. It is imperative that we dispel any hint or allegation of positions being adopted on the basis of lavish personal sponsorships.” — Sapa