The SA Communist Party (SACP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the SA National Civics Organisation (SANCO) have lashed out at its alliance partner, the ANC, over its decision to team up with the DA to form the Government of National Unity following the May 29 elections.
Chief to their concerns, the organisations say the party had not done a proper consulting process before making the decision, and it should have had a lekgotla “before its marriage with the DA”.
This emerged during the party’s three-day lekgotla at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni, that is ending on Tuesday.
The meeting which includes government officials deployed by the party, follows a three-day ANC national executive committee meeting.
On Monday, members of the alliance presented their grievances and programmes at the ANC gathering.
Cosatu’s general secretary Solly Phetoe, while delivering a supporting message to the ANC, said the federation was concerned that the meeting was only called after the formation of the GNU.
“We must register our concerns that we are meeting after the GNU Cabinet has had its own lekgotla. This poses the challenge of how lekgotlas’ decisions will find expression in the GNU mandate?
“We are at a crossroads as the liberation movement, where the electorate and in particular the working and middle classes have been handed a painful verdict on our performance with a below 50% result for the first time ever. This result was not a surprise given the many challenges we have had to struggle with and our own failings,” Phetoe said.
He added: “It is disconcerting how the ANC treated the alliance during this very sensitive process. While we received an initial alliance secretariat briefing, this was after the ANC had begun negotiations. We were left to hear the NEC decision on establishing a GNU on TV. Commitments to include the alliance in the GNU negotiations were not honoured,” he said.
Speaking at the party’s 103 anniversary in Khayelitsha, Cape Town on Sunday the SACP’s general secretary, Solly Mapaila said the results following the general elections sent a poor message to the working class and intimated that the ANC should not have formed the GNU with the DA.
He also said the party was showing signs of agreeing with “white monopoly capital”.
“All these parties, BOSA, Rise Mzansi, the FF Plus and others, all with money from the Oppenheimers as well as from international capital, immediately after the elections we go and embrace them,” Mapaila said.
“When the moment arises for them to side with the people, they decide to join hands with ‘capital’ and want to justify it to the extent that there was some engagement with us… They want to include us in that particular process, no we are not a party to that. We felt this was a bad political choice. There could have been a different political choice and a different outcome,” Mapaila said.
However, addressing a media briefing yesterday, acting ANC national spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi said he was confident that the alliance partners would change their tune regarding the GNU.
“Cosatu and the SACP represent different constituencies who are likely going to have categorically different views from the ANC on matters of strategy. We just have to constantly have conversations with them to manage our respective understandings of what is the best way forward.
“So, there will be continuous conversation between the ANC leadership and the alliance. There’s an alliance political council established for that,” he said.
While delivering his political overview on Sunday, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa defended the GNU, saying it was the best option for the ANC to take up its role of governing the country.
“We have suffered a strategic setback that has far-reaching consequences and implications for how we are going to conduct the struggle for the fundamental transformation of South Africa.
“One of the implications of this new situation is that the ANC can no longer govern alone. Faced with this stark reality, the NEC decided the ANC should give leadership to take the country forwards by inviting all parties that would subscribe and agree to a set of principles and a transformative minimum programme to form a government,” Ramaphosa said.
The Star