Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources and ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe has warned that the South African Communist Party’s (SACP) decision to contest elections independently is a serious gamble that could either strengthen or sink the party.
Speaking in an interview on SABC, Mantashe said the SACP’s move away from the ANC-led alliance was “a big mistake for a party to move away from the mass formation and go on its own as a revolutionary party”.
He said the communists would have been better placed bringing “its expertise and its skill to the ANC to clarify the thinking of the ANC” rather than separating from it.
Mantashe, who described himself as “an old member” of the SACP dating back to the 1980s, said the decision meant the party was taking a major risk with its future.
He said the SACP was “taking a risk, is gambling on its own future by going it alone”.
He added that the move could either boost the party or lead to its decline.
Responding to suggestions that the SACP’s decision was driven by frustration with the ANC’s internal challenges, Mantashe rejected the idea that one party should base its resolutions on the state of another.
He said, “You can’t take a decision as a party on the basis of the ANC. The ANC takes its own decision. The party takes its own decision.”
He added that the ANC could not interfere with the SACP’s resolution because “it’s an independent party”, stressing that the alliance was made up of “equal partners” that took independent decisions.
Mantashe also pointed to the historical influence of the SACP within the ANC, saying many ANC policies bore the “finger prints of the party”.
He said figures such as “Moses Kotane , JB Marks, and all of them were comfortably influencing policy formation of the ANC without claiming credit for it”.
Politics
