The South African Communist Party will amend its constitution in response to concerns that the senior government positions held by party bosses such as Blade Nzimande and Jeremy Cronin are weakening the party’s management.
And the party now says it is willing to apologise to the ANC for booing ANC Youth League president Julius Malema and national executive committee member Billy Masetlha at the SACP special national congress in Polokwane last week.
The congress decided on constitutional amendments that will create a second deputy general secretary and remove the stipulation that the position of general secretary be fulltime.
There had been concern in the run-up to the congress that the deployment of Nzimande, the party’s general secretary, to the Cabinet as minister of higher education and deputy general secretary Cronin’s appointment as deputy transport minister, was weakening party work at head office.
Solly Mapaila, who has been running the office of the general secretary, is tipped to take the newly created second deputy general secretary position.
The amendment was not adopted specifically to suit Nzimande, Cronin told the Mail & Guardian this week, pointing out that provincial secretaries would also benefit from the change.
If relieving Nzimande and other provincial secretaries turned out to threaten the party’s growth, Cronin said the amendment could be reconsidered. ”That is the sort of thing that could come up at the 12th congress,” he said.
”We must make sure that we do not lose the capacity [to run] the party.”
And when the SACP and ANC meet in a bilateral session, likely to take place in January, the communists will be ”bold enough to apologise” to the ruling party for heckling Malema and Masetlha at the congress, Cronin said.
Both SACP chairperson Gwede Mantashe, who is also ANC secretary general, and Nzimande had condemned the heckling by congress delegates on the day it happened, Cronin said. ”A number of us also said it was a mistake that the ANC delegation was booed,” he told the M&G.
The SACP will compile its own report on the incident, which will form part of discussions at the bilateral meeting. Cronin emphasised that it was not the entire ANC delegation that was booed, but only ”two individuals”. Malema and Masetlha are both considered anti-communists — but that ”still does not make it right”, Cronin said.
But further friction between the two parties might have been created by the SACP’s resolution to force its deployees in government to account to the party, despite their being in state positions on an ANC ticket.
”It is not good enough to say I am a communist, but I was acting under ANC discipline,” Cronin said. He acknowledged that this might create friction between the party and the ANC because it is the ruling party that deploys cadres in government.
The SACP has encouraged its members to swell the ANC ranks as part of its strategy to have more influence within the alliance.
”It is not about taking over the ANC. It is about taking collective responsibility. We are not an opposition that should stand outside and criticise the ANC,” said Cronin.
At the congress Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi encouraged the communist party to ”hoist the red flag” proudly and deploy more of its members in government structures. ”We do not struggle so that others can be our rulers,” he told the congress.
”We, more than ever before, are presented with an opportunity to deploy our leaders to the key levers of power. We cannot abstain from this challenge nor can we subcontract it to others.”
Vavi said the fact that the alliance was now recognising the contribution made by communists was a result of ”our efforts. We are therefore not an opposition grouping or an NGO that is not interested in state power.”
The SACP’s membership now stands at just over 96 000, almost double that at the time of the party’s last congress. At January’s bilateral meeting the SACP will raise its unhappiness about the poor representation of the ANC at its recent congress. The delegation was supposed to have been led by ANC chairperson Baleka Mbete and deputy secretary general Thandi Modise, but neither attended.