The ANC's alliance partners in KwaZulu-Natal have been publicly critical of its provincial executive committee — led by chairperson Siboniso Duma and secretary Bheki Mtolo — over its failure to meet them for more than a year and to consult them regarding key decisions.
(Darren Stewart/Gallo Images)
After months of tensions between the South African National Civic Organisation in KwaZulu-Natal and the ANC, Sanco has resolved to immediately cut ties with its “arrogant” alliance partner.
The decision is another blow to the embattled ANC provincial leadership, which faces possible dissolution by the party’s national executive committee next month in the wake of the party’s loss of KwaZulu-Natal in the 29 May elections.
The party was reduced to 17% of the vote in the province — which translates into 14 legislature seats — and is now in a government of provincial unity led by the Inkatha Freedom Party, placing increasing strain on its relationships with its long-standing allies.
Sanco has historically been in an alliance with the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (Cosatu) and took the decision to break off relations at a recent meeting of its provincial executive committee.
The ANC’s alliance partners in KwaZulu-Natal have been publicly critical of its provincial executive committee — led by chairperson Siboniso Duma and secretary Bheki Mtolo — over its failure to meet them for more than a year and to consult them regarding key decisions.
In a letter to Mtolo this weekend, Sanco KwaZulu-Natal secretary Sizwe Cele said it and the other partners had made numerous attempts to hold alliance meetings with the governing party since the end of last year. But “nothing has been forthcoming”, leading to Sanco, the SACP and Cosatu holding a briefing in June “expressing dissatisfaction about the manner in which the ANC led or failed to lead the alliance in the province”.
“There is nothing that the ANC KwaZulu-Natal has done to signal that it has intention to get the alliance working again,” Cele said. “Instead the ANC strains the alliance relationship even further.
“This is proven by the fact that, as we are approaching the end of the year today, there has never been any alliance meeting, or bilateral meeting with yourselves that has taken place this year.”
Sanco believed the “one-sided and fake political relationship” continued to prove that the ANC ‘is led by arrogant and factional leaders who are happy to see the alliance dying in their hands”.
Cele said the Sanco provincial executive committee “concluded that it is cutting ties with the ANC KwaZulu-Natal with immediate effect”.
This meant it would not participate in ANC programmes and would not invite the party leadership to take part in any of its activities, “which you do not honour anyway”.
Cele said the provincial leadership had informed the Sanco national leadership of its decision and remained committed to the alliance with the SACP and Cosatu in KwaZulu-Natal.
Both the SACP and Cosatu have publicly expressed their dissatisfaction over the functioning of the alliance in the province and their exclusion from decision-making by the ANC leadership.
ANC spokesperson Mafika Mndebele said the party would not respond to Sanco publicly.
“Sanco has been critical towards the ANC before elections, during elections and after elections,” Mndebele said. “The ANC will not be engaging it publicly but we will continue to work for the revival of our structures. The work continues.”
Mndebele said it was inevitable that there would be differences among alliance partners.
“We have a relationship with all alliance partners but as independent organisations from time to time they may see things differently from us and that we accept as the ANC,” he said.