Cope leadership to be decided on a 'consensus basis' The Congress of the People's (Cope) inaugural conference in Bloemfontein will not be turned into another Polokwane, with jostling for positions.
Cope general secretary Charlotte Lobe said the conference starting this weekend is not an elective conference; rather, the party's formal leadership will be named after delegates have been given an opportunity to decide the matter on "a consensus basis". "Our focus is on a team of people who will take Cope to the 2009 elections," she said. Cope revealed that it has registered more than 400 000 paid-up members, excluding members that have opted for online registration. Judging by the figures given on Tuesday, the Eastern Cape seems to be Cope's stronghold, with 160 000 members, followed by the Free State with 74 000. The Western Cape has got 60 000 registered members and the Northern Cape and Limpopo have managed to attract 30 000 members each. Despite Cope's head offices being in Gauteng, the province's membership is curiously low with only 24 000 people paying the R30 a year registration fee. Cope counted 25 000 members in the North West and 15 000 in Mpumalanga. KwaZulu-Natal is the lowest with 10 000 members. The new party is contesting by-elections in the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, the Free State and Limpopo. It will not contest by-elections in Gauteng because, according to Lobe, the leadership decided to "contest by-elections in areas where we have particular strengths", an indication that Cope still doubts its influence in the country's economic hub. Since Cope showed massive support in the Eastern Cape, the ANC has been sending powerful teams to the province, including MPs and members of the national executive committee to ensure that the ruling party does not lose the province to Cope. Lobe said the ANC's election drive in the province showed that the ruling party was feeling the heat from a party that it initially said was not a threat and was not worth talking about. "We welcome the fact that they realise they are now in trouble in the Eastern Cape." Cope's draft policy framework was unveiled on Tuesday morning, with a much clearer direction on affirmative action and black economic empowerment. Head of policy at Cope, Smuts Ngonyama, told the media that the party believes "these two [should] remain intact, but we need balance to ensure that they are not being used to discriminate against anyone". The draft policies highlight the need to stimulate economic growth by increasing manufacturing and production, increasing job creation and stepping up the fight against crime and HIV/Aids. The slogan for the inaugural conference in Bloemfontein is "A new agenda for change and hope", and the conference will end with a launch rally at the Bloemfontein cricket stadium on December 16. M&G http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-12-09-cope-leadership-to-be-decided-on-a-consensus-basis --- On Tue, 12/9/08, Dominic Tweedie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Dominic Tweedie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [YCLSA Discussion] Thanks and some few words To: [email protected] Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 4:48 PM Thanks for the messages of appreciation, comrades. To Sithembewena Tsembeyi, I want to say the following: You wrote to me privately to solicit my support to subvert the disciplinary process of the Party. I wrote back to you personally to advise you in a comradely way to desist from doing that, and to wait for the process to run through. You took my message and posted it on this forum. So be it. Let me make myself a little bit more clear about this. The Party can tolerate a great deal, but what it cannot tolerate is for any member to have a secret or a defiant loyalty that is held by that member to be higher than his loyalty to the Party and its duly-elected leadership. If you are serving some other cause than that of the Party, then you are in the Party in bad faith, and the only honourable way out of that situation is to leave, or to else re-submit yourself to the Party’s discipline and abandon your other master. This is not about Zico, Comrade Sithembewena, or anybody else but yourself. This Party is not divided between “Bolsheviks” and others. You may not go around getting up a faction within our SACP. It is not permissible for you to go around denouncing other Party comrades as Mensheviks or thugs. These words are put from a Party point of view, and not as moderator of this forum, which is a different matter. To other comrades, let me repeat some things that I have written here before. I moderate this forum, for the time being, and until some other person comes forward to take over. That means I filter out the spam (a very tedious job) and do some other technical things. As a rule, I do not censor or ban. The forum must find its own level and must solve its ideological problems in dialogue. If it cannot do this much for itself, it might as well pack up. But in fact it does very well and I have no complaints. My main job at the moment is the production of COSATU Today and the COSATU Media Monitor. To subscribe for these two go to http://groups-beta.google.com/group/COSATU-Daily-News . >From time to time I post selected material that I gather for those >publications on to this forum. Usually these would be items that need >discussion. In other words, they are posted not so much to assert any fact or >point of view, but rather to invite peoples’ views and to gain some further >understanding from that dialogue. The value of the forum is that it can help >sort out problems. The City Press article about what Mluleki George is alleged to have claimed about Thabo Mbeki is a good example of such an open-ended question. Contrary to what has been said, the journalist Moffet Mofokeng did a very good job. He did his own research and he got clear quotes from both sides, including from an individual who was present when George is alleged to have made his remarks. This was a good story and a worthy front-page lead. We will find out who is right and who is wrong in due course. Maybe some Eastern Cape comrades can assist, right here. I am very short of time. I would have loved to have intervened sooner in this discussion, but I hardly have any time, comrades. Cde Sbu, I see your message which arrived just as I was finishing this. I appreciate your wisdom as always. Domza, VC. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. 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