ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has once again appealed to the SACP to reconsider its decision to contest elections independently from the former liberation movement.
If it means they, as the ANC, must negotiate with SACP in efforts to find each other, that should be done, even at the cost of him growing more grey hair.
Mbalula, addressing a Popcru trade union central executive committee (CEC) gathering at the Birchwood Hotel in Gauteng on Tuesday, said some of the SACP concerns, such as the slow pace of the reconfiguration of the ANC-led tripartite alliance, were valid. But throwing the baby out with the water was not an option.
Mbalula said as things stand, he had more grey hair than black since the formation of the GNU. This owing to the extreme and constant negotiation needed to keep GNU partners happy.
GNU was lesson in negotiation
If the ANC can do this with the likes of the DA, it should be second nature to long-time allies such as the SACP, he said.
“I now almost have full grey hair like an old man, although I arrived in the ANC with black hair. It is nothing else but that GNU and the level of negotiation involved in it. There, we are negotiating day and night, begging for everything,” said Mbalula.
“Comrades, the ANC will work for the unity of the alliance and will work with the SACP and Cosatu. We cannot afford any one of us going at it alone.
“If you (workers and communists) ditch this alliance, you are leaving it in the hands of the rich to do as they please. I feel sorry for the comrades who are celebrating when the SACP is saying it is going to contest elections independently.”
Mbalula insisted that souring relations between ANC and SACP were not good for all forces of the left, including unions.
The departure of the SACP from the alliance, he added, would leave a huge ideological void in the ANC. This is especially on politics of the left.
“The SACP has historically shaped ideology and political content in the alliance. It has never been about the game of numbers that is elections,” said Mbalula.
“That is why advanced cadreship, even in the ANC, are communist party members. Communists are distinguishable in the alliance and always have been. So when they leave the alliance, who will fill that vacuum?
It will be game over for ANC
“ANC is a broad church. If the communists leave and we have no one to sharpen the contradictions against the agenda of the rich, it is game over. The interests of the working class will suffer a great deal. And ANC will be a chorus of liberals who all agree with each other,” he went on.
Mbalula also said one of the things that hardened the attitudes of workers and SACP was the failed VAT hike earlier this year.
For that matter, he said, the ANC had never agreed to the VAT increase. He pinned it squarely at the door of Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.
“To be honest with you, the ANC top brass never discussed and agreed to raise the VAT [before it was tabled by the minister],” said Mbalula.
“It is extremely tough, comrades, but we will never sell you out. But if the communists and workers leave, selling out will be easy. Because all that will be left will be people who agree.”
