SACP+12th+National+Congress,+2007,+Party+and+State+Power



** SACP 12 **** TH **** NATIONAL CONGRESS RESOLUTIONS **

NOTING
1. That the question of state power is the central question of any revolution 2. That state power is located in diverse sites, including the executive, the legislatures, the judiciary, security forces, the broad public sector, state owned enterprises, and other public institutions. 3. That the strategic Medium Term Vision (MTV) of the South African Communist Party is to secure working class hegemony in the State in its diversity and in all other sites of power. 4. That electoral politics are an important but not an exclusive terrain for the contesting of state power. 5. Working class power in the state is related to working class power in all other sites, including the imperative of developing organs of popular power, active forms of participatory democracy and social mobilisation. 6. That the structures of the SACP and our cadres have confronted many problems with the way in which the Alliance has often functioned, particularly with regard to policy making, the lack of joint programmes on the ground, deployments and electoral list processes.

AND BELIEVING THAT
1. While the state of white minority rule has been abolished and important constitutional and other gains have been won, the post-1994 state requires significant transformation. 2. This includes amongst other things: a) Redressing the damaging impact of privatisation and restructuring policies that have weakened the capacity of the state and exposed key strategic areas to the dominance of private capital; b) Addressing the lack of a clear cadre development policy in the state; c) Building the strategic capacity of the state to drive developmental programmes; d) Rebuilding critical sectors of the public service, including health care and education, that are still reeling from the effects of years of down-sizing and other restructuring measures; e) Transforming the key area of local government, often the weakest sphere of governance. 3. That SACP cadres who are deployed as ANC elected representatives, or as public servants must continue to owe allegiance to the Party and cannot conduct themselves in ways that are contrary to the fundamental policies, principles and values of the SACP. The same principle applies to SACP cadres in other deployments, including within the trade union movement, community organisations, etc.

AND FURTHER BELIEVING THAT
1. The alliance requires major reconfiguration if the NDR is to be advanced, deepened and defended, and if we are to achieve the SACP’s medium term vision objectives of building working class hegemony in all sites of power, including the state; 2. That this reconfiguration of the Alliance must include the following elements: a) The Alliance must establish itself as a strategic political centre; b) This political centre must develop a common capacity to drive strategy, broad policy, campaigns, deployment and accountability. 3. At the same time, this reconfiguration of the Alliance must respect the independent role and strategic tasks of each of the alliance partners.

THEREFORE RESOLVE
1. That the SACP deepens its capacity to provide strategic leadership in regard to key policy sites of state power, including industrial policy, social policies and the safety, security and defence sectors. 2. That the SACP contests state power in elections in the context of a reconfigured Alliance. 3. To mandate the incoming CC to actively pursue the different potential modalities of future SACP electoral campaigning. These modalities could involve **__either__**:
 * An electoral pact with our Alliance partners, which could include agreement on deployments, possible quotas, the accountability of elected representatives including accountability of SACP cadres to the Party, the election manifesto, and the importance of an independent face and role for the SACP and its cadres within legislatures.


 * __ or __** :
 * Independent electoral lists on the voter’s roll with the possible objective of constituting a coalition Alliance agreement post elections.

4. The SACP must actively engage its Alliance partners on these proposals. 5. The Party and State Power Commission must take forward its work to study international experiences closely, and to analyse in detail and evaluate our local reality. 6. The incoming CC must convene a policy conference within a year, in order to assess the feasibility, and potential advantages and disadvantages of the different modalities noted above, including further detailed research. 7. Whatever options are chosen, we must strengthen the SACP’s policy capacity, and our organised strength on the ground.
 * From: http://www.sacp.org.za/12th_congress/resolutions.pdf**

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