SACP with Red.png
SACP, 28 August 2016
13th Congress Central Committee
17th Plenary Session, Statement
Let's take on the choke-hold of monopoly capital on our economy, but let's
prioritise the struggle against the most immediate threat - the parasitic
hollowing-out of state capacity!
The South African Communist Party Central Committee met in Ekurhuleni,
Gauteng over the weekend of 26 to 28 August. A central focus of the CC was
an evaluation of the performance of the ANC-led Alliance in the 3 August
local government elections. CC members were able to provide detailed
insights coming from many localities throughout South Africa, in which the
SACP campaigned actively for an ANC election victory.
The CC applauded the activist role played by the SACP and in particular our
Red Brigades in campaigning often in the most difficult areas, some of which
had otherwise become no-go areas for the ANC itself.
The 3 August local government elections - a strong popular message from our
core base
These detailed inputs from the ground all confirmed a common thread of
serious challenges confronting our ANC-led alliance. As a general
characterisation of the election results, the CC endorsed the earlier
Political Bureau perspective. The PB had noted that at 54%, the ANC still
retains majority support. However, while there has been a steady decline
over several elections in the ANC's percentage support, the August 3 results
represent a precipitous decline in both urban and rural areas. The CC
further observed that, unless serious corrective actions are undertaken, the
decline will continue and likely accelerate.
A significant factor in our declining electoral support has been a major
stay-away in much of our core social base, which is reflected in our winning
the overwhelming majority of working class township wards but with a low
turnout, and consequently losing significant ground in terms of proportional
representation. The low general turn-out in our core social bases, the small
but not insignificant toe-hold secured by opposition parties like the DA in
these bases, and even the scepticism expressed by many who nonetheless voted
for the ANC - these are all sending a powerful message to the ANC and its
Alliance partners.
Growing numbers of South Africans are tired of being taken for granted. They
believe that ANC formal structures are increasingly inward looking,
pre-occupied with factional battles and money politics. They believe that
the conduct of ANC politicians is often arrogant and aloof. There are tens
of thousands of loyal ANC supporters and many veterans who are excluded from
branch structures by gate-keepers and fraudulent abuse of membership data.
The imposition of unpopular ANC candidates, in defiance of the ANC's own
guidelines, was another major weakness.
All South Africans are deeply concerned about corruption. Many correctly
appreciate major service delivery advances over the past two decades.
However, they increasingly tell us that it is not material issues alone, but
a prevailing view that our liberation movement has lost its moral compass.
The CC also agreed that the manner in which the ANC chose to campaign by
foregrounding President Zuma and not local issues and local mayoral
candidates played straight into the hands of the opposition campaign. The
opposition parties had very little to say about local policy content,
focusing instead on our national leadership shortcomings - whether real or
alleged.
The CC also expressed some disappointment at the statement issued by the ANC
following its recent National Executive Committee. It is not that the
statement did not touch generally on many of the challenges and internal
weaknesses confronting the ANC. But ever since the early 2000s, successive
ANC National Conferences and ANC-led Alliance Summits have raised the same
themes - growing social distance from our mass base, gate-keeping,
factionalism, slate-based campaigning with winner-takes-all outcomes,
personality-based politics without any ideological foundation, money
politics, and corruption.
What the great majority of South Africans are hoping for is a clear sign of
willingness to act decisively against these morbid symptoms. The
recommendations of the ANC's own integrity committee are by-passed. Corrupt
individuals appear to enjoy cover. One senior leader, in order to explain
why there appears to be a reluctance to move decisively with disciplinary
action, recently said in public that "we all have small skeletons in our
cupboards". As far as we know, she was not called upon to divulge to the
integrity committee (or any other relevant structure) what small skeletons
she was aware of, so that the matters could be dealt with.
Notwithstanding all of this, the SACP CC reaffirmed its long-standing
tradition to work tirelessly for the revitalisation of the ANC on the basis
of a principled unity. We all need to work together to restore the ANC in
its ability to lead what its own 2012 National Conference called a second
radical phase of the national democratic revolution.
If we are to be honest, the jury is out as to whether there is the internal
capacity to carry forward such a revitalisation.
We urge the ANC to convene a non-elective Consultative Conference
In this general context, the SACP has taken note of calls by the ANC Youth
League for an early ANC national elective conference. We are also aware that
the ANCYL is being used by others to test the waters in this regard. While
any decision on the timing of an ANC national conference must, of course, be
made by the ANC itself, the SACP is firmly of the belief that the motivation
for this call is entirely factional. If followed through it will result in
deepening disunity within the ANC and across its alliance. The winners will
inherit a shell organisation. Those making this call are not even bothering
to disguise their factional intentions. They have learnt nothing from the
local government elections. Nor have they learnt anything from the premature
convening, against the advice of the ANC NEC itself, of the KZN ANC
provincial conference which has simply deepened divisions within a formerly
united ANC province.
The SACP believes there is great merit in considering the possibility of a
national ANC Consultative (or special) Conference prior to the ANC's
National Conference. Such a consultative conference should be a non-elective
event, with ANC provinces being accorded an equal number of delegates to
avoid endless accreditation disputes. The aim of the consultative conference
should be to unify the ANC and indeed the broader Alliance on a principled
programmatic basis. Agreement should be reached, if possible, on the
transition to a new leadership, and, at the very least on mechanisms to
ensure that the December 2017 Conference will not be characterised by a
shoot-out between winner-takes-all mutually exclusive slates. Regardless of
the winning slate, such an outcome will simply accelerate the decline of the
ANC.
An effective consultative conference should also be a unifying space in
which we can all reflect upon and take individual and collective
responsibility for mistakes we have made. We do not exclude the SACP from
this self-reflective and responsibility-taking imperative. We believe that
alliance partners should be allowed an active role in the conference.
Consideration should also be given to inviting senior and respected veterans
of our movement, and even other progressive forces like, for instance, the
South African Council of Churches. Let us be prepared to listen to those
whose criticism of us is motivated by a genuine concern about the future of
our movement and our country, and not by petty personality hatreds or an
inveterate anti-ANC position.
End the politically-motivated harassment of the Minister of Finance!
The CC reaffirmed the SACP's condemnation of the ongoing harassment by the
Hawks of the Minister of Finance, comrade Pravin Gordhan. No-one, whether
comrade Gordhan or Hawks General Ntlemeza, should be above the law. But as
numerous commentators have observed, the putative charges against Comrade
Gordhan are a flimsy concoction without the slightest basis in law. They are
designed as a pretext to remove Comrade Gordhan from office and weaken
Treasury's struggle against corruption and corporate capture.
We have noted the denial of any political involvement in this matter, but
also note that after assuring Comrade Gordhan that he was not a suspect, and
then pausing for the local government elections, the matter is suddenly back
on the table. The timing has an eerie similarity with the events that
unfolded between 2003 and 2007, when the timing of another prosecution
attempt against a senior politician appeared to be coordinated around the
political calendar of the ANC.
Over the last decade the ANC has battled to handle effectively leadership
transitions. Back in in 2003 the head of the National Directorate of Public
Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka announced that, while there was a prima facie
case against then deputy president Comrade Zuma, he would not be prosecuted.
This statement placed Comrade Zuma, the ANC, and indeed the whole country in
an untenable situation. The current harassment of Comrade Gordhan bears an
uncanny resemblance to those events, where judicial processes are used and
abused for political ends.
The SACP also notes that the most critical of all issues is getting lost in
this affair. It is too often presented in the public domain as a simple
stand-off between Comrade Gordhan and the Hawks. Clearly, the South African
Revenue Services, like any reputable revenue service in the world, needs a
financial intelligence capacity. Yes, that capacity needs to be regulated by
law to prevent abuse. But the real question in this matter is what did the
so-called "rogue unit" in SARS uncover that has made some forces so
desperate as to dismantle effective capacity in SARS, even risking South
Africa's economic well-being in the process?
Tax confidentiality prevents SARS from disclosing details of its findings
and investigations. But there is much that is available in the public
domain. We know, for instance, that SARS has had a major focus on the
cigarette industry and tax fraud amounting to billions of rands. We know
that one company that has come under scrutiny is Carlinix owned by Adriano
Mazzotti an Italian reputedly with underworld connections. We know that
Mazzotti has connections with convicted drug-dealer Glen Agliotti and that
Carlinix employed two of the shooters involved in the death of Brett Kebble.
Mazzotti has also publicly admitted that it was he who paid the R200,000
that enabled Julius Malema's EFF to register with the Independent Electoral
Commission in 2014. Mazzotti, however, refused to confirm whether he was
assisting Malema in paying his R18m tax penalty agreement with SARS.
Malema's association with Mazzotti clearly goes back long before the
formation of the EFF, at a time when he was still president of the ANC Youth
League and the question arises as to what tendencies Malema has left behind
within our movement itself.
The Guptas claim to be selling off their South African interests
The SACP has taken note of Friday's announcement that the Gupta family
intends to sell off all of its assets in South Africa by the end of the year
to certain unspecified international interests. Ostensibly this is for the
benefit of South Africa and to save local jobs. Frankly, we treat this
announcement with a great deal of scepticism. It comes at a time when Gupta
companies are reportedly under increasing scrutiny from the Reserve Bank,
Treasury and the Financial Intelligence Centre. The announcement that the
sale will be completed before the end of the year happens to coincide
precisely with the 2017 date for the multi-lateral, international Automatic
Exchange of Information (AEI) agreement coming into operation. The agreement
provides for the automatic exchange of non-resident financial account
information with the tax authorities in the account holder's country of
residence. This will facilitate the discovery of formerly undetected tax
evasion by way of illicit flows into foreign bank accounts. The AEI will
provide South African authorities with much greater insight into the foreign
bank accounts of South African residents.
Given the over-valued and under-traded nature of Gupta-linked JSE interests
we doubt that there will be much appetite for purchasing them. There is a
strong possibility that the Guptas simply intend to sell their South African
interests to themselves through their foreign-based investment venture
capital operations. We call on the Financial Intelligence Centre to satisfy
itself that if any sales are effected, the Gupta family or close relatives
are not the beneficial owners of the sale. We trust that the Reserve Bank,
before approving any sale from a resident to a non-resident, will ensure
that there is full legal compliance with capital export requirements. We
also believe that our financial regulatory entities should ensure that money
is retained in South Africa in a blocked account so that any potential
penalties and liabilities are covered should further information emerge in
regard to the wrecking-ball activities of the Guptas and their associates.
Let us mobilise the key motive forces of our national democratic revolution!
The CC agreed that the democratic transition from white minority rule to a
united, non-racial, non-sexist and fundamentally more egalitarian society is
now at a decisive cross-roads moment. This is not the first time in its
proud history that the ANC has found itself in difficulty, facing internal
disintegration. In the first decade of exile, the ANC's 1969 ANC Morogoro
Consultative Conference was a decisive moment in rescuing the ANC from
decline and irrelevance. It laid the basis for a principled programmatic
unity of the ANC itself and it formalised the ANC-led tripartite alliance.
Of course, the realities and challenges confronting the ANC and its Alliance
in 2016 are different in many respects, but the critical imperative remains
the same. We have to unite the broadest range of patriotic and democratic
forces in the ongoing struggle to overcome the terrible legacy of
colonialism and white minority rule. It is a legacy that continues to
reproduce extraordinarily high levels of racialised (and gendered and
spatial) inequality, poverty and general social distress. It is precisely
these systemic features that the DA is in deep denial about with its guiding
individualistic philosophy of "equal opportunities" (and NOT equal
outcomes). It is this denialism that accounts for Helen Zille's inability to
recognise the profound impact that poverty has on vulnerability to HIV
infection, for instance, leaving it all down to "individual responsibility".
It is the same denial of a racialised systemic reality that underpins the
DA's ambivalence about affirmative action and broad-based economic
empowerment measures, or, for that matter, a state-led re-industrialisation
program.
If the ANC's national leadership proves incapable of leading a national
democratic struggle, it does not mean that it is a struggle that does not
still need to be waged across a broad, multi-class, patriotic front. The
SACP continues to see its role in this context as an independent but
non-sectarian vanguard party of socialism in the midst of a broad national
democratic struggle. Let us be active in helping to re-build a principled
ANC and broader mass democratic movement from the ground-up. We believe that
the consolidation of our national and democratic objectives cannot be
advanced, deepened and defended without taking on the choke-hold of monopoly
capital on our political economy.
But we cannot undertake any of these tasks without also prioritising the
struggle against the most immediate threat - the parasitic hollowing-out of
state capacity.
The SACP working with allied and all progressive formations believes that
now is the time to reinvigorate people's power through mobilising the key
motive forces of any democratic revolution - the working class, the urban
and rural poor. Rural development and land reform, the struggle for the
right to work, the financial sector campaign, community safety, the
consolidation and re-building of the trade union movement, solidarity with
the aspirations of the youth - these are among the key priorities of our
current reality.
Issued by the 13th SACP Central Committee 17th Plenary Session
Contact:
Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, National Spokesperson, 082 920 0308
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