The+SA+NDR+and+Socialism,+Dominic+Tweedie,+Morning+Star

The Morning Star, London, Monday 12 February 2007
=Momentous events=


 * DOMINIC TWEEDIE** kicks off his regular series of dispatches from South Africa with a look at the political scene in this important year.

The two million strong Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), founded in 1985, held its 9th Congress between the 18th and 21st of last September, and set the agenda for a momentous series of events set to take place in 2007. COSATU is by far the biggest and best organised component of the South African democracy established in 1994. The other principle components are the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the African National Congress (ANC), which is the liberation movement that serves to bind all three together in a tripartite alliance.

The ANC will hold a National Policy Conference from 27th June to 1st July. The SACP will hold its 12th Congress from the 11th to 15th July. COSATU will convene another full delegate conference, known as the Central Committee, between 17th and 20th September. Finally, the ANC will come together again for its 52nd National (elective) Conference in December, just before the traditional extended South African Christmas break. Each of these gatherings will involve thousands of delegates.

What is at stake in this orgy of democracy? The bourgeois press would answer with one voice: The Succession! By this they mean the question of which individual will become the President of the ANC in September, and thereby become the President-In-Waiting of the republic. Thabo Mbeki’s second and constitutionally last 4-year term is due to end in 2009. Whoever follows him is quite likely to be in place until 2017.

South Africa does not directly elect its President. Hence the President of the ANC, which has held on to more than two thirds of the popular vote in elections since 1994, is a practical certainty to be President of the country.

COSATU’s General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, has denounced the idea of elections being “beauty contests”. The SACP, led by General Secretary Blade Nzimande, has declared 2007 to be “Policy Year”, by which they mean that the country should decide political matters first, and personalities to execute policy, afterwards.

The bourgeoisie is equally concerned with policy, but would rather not risk putting it to the electorate, preferring to rush forward a candidate from the small pool of new black capitalists, and hoping thereby to maintain the status quo for another decade. Names that have been punted in the mass print media (entirely dominated by capitalist interests) have been Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa, both now multi-millionaires, both now associated with the dominant monopoly sector of South African economy, and both with their former struggle credentials far behind them.

A lot of effort has been expended trying to stop the current Deputy President of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, from succeeding to the ANC Presidency. Zuma has survived everything that has been thrown at him, and come out stronger. Yet he too would probably be acceptable to the big business interests that still literally own the country, on condition that he eschews anything like a revolutionary programme.

Many substantial resolutions were passed at the COSATU Congress. The one that stands out above the rest is called “The National Democratic Revolution and Socialism”. From the earliest political stirrings of 2007, and particularly the anniversary of the death of former SACP General Secretary Joe Slovo on the 6th of January, it is this theme that has dominated. An SACP statement stressed the following:

“Cde Slovo’s thoughts on the dynamic link between the National Democratic Revolution and the struggle for Socialism will serve as one source of reference as the working class in our country marches to ensure that our NDR is not stolen by the rich thus deteriorating into nothing more than one type of a bourgeoisie revolution. Ours was never a struggle to make the few rich whilst the majority of our people remain impoverished.”

In his well-known 1988 pamphlet “The South African Working class and the NDR”, Slovo had written that the achievement of democracy in bourgeois conditions could not by itself solve the country’s problems - and so it has proved. He argued that there should be an uninterrupted movement onwards to socialism following the defeat of the racist regime and the installation of full national democracy.

Yet thirteen years of continuing bourgeois economics have taken their toll on the liberation movement, whose “Freedom Charter” and “Strategy and Tactics” formerly did not flinch from the task of dealing with the bourgeoisie. Nowadays, not only the likes of Sexwale and Ramaphosa, but also the majority of the ANC’s National Executive Committee and even Members of Parliament are “in business”.

Business penetration is also significant at the level of South Africa’s nine Provinces and even down to branch level of the ANC. At a “lekgotla” (ad hoc gathering) of ANC leadership two weeks after the Slovo anniversary, President Mbeki championed the cause of the new business elite. Together with Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moloketi he attacked COSATU in particular for its resolution on the NDR and socialism and advocacy of a dictatorship of the proletariat in South Africa.

The double harangue lasted three hours. Delegates at the lekgotla would have none of it, however. The debate was brought to an abrupt halt in a clear rejection of Moloketi’s contribution. It was the first face-off of 2007, and it was a win for COSATU in particular and the working class in general.

There is no doubt that the debate on the NDR and socialism is the fundamental political theme of 2007. It is a question of whether the South African people will hand over its revolution to the bourgeoisie, or instead take it back and make it into the revolution of popular power that was always anticipated in the famous slogan “Amandla! Awethu!” (Power to the people).

At next week’s State of the Nation Speech at the opening of parliament all eyes will again be on President Mbeki to see whether he will use it to take another swipe at COSATU’s call for a dictatorship of the proletariat.

A documentary film of COSATU’s 9th Congress is downloadable from the Internet at http://groups.google.com/group/COSATU-Daily-News/web/cosatu-9th-congress-film. It includes the crucial debate on the “NDR and socialism” and many other dramatic moments. If you wish to follow South African politics in this extraordinary year, watching that video would be a very good way in.

Dominic Tweedie is the editor of COSATU’s magazine, “The Shopseward”, and a member of the South African Communist party and the African National Congress. His blog is at **http://domza.blogspot.com/**


 * From: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index2.php/ex/examples/features** (subscription)

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