So+Many+Questions,+with+Zico+Tamela,+by+Chris+Barron,+S+Times




 * Sunday Times, Johannesburg,** **27 May 2007**

=So Many Questions=
 * with SACP Gauteng secretary Zico Tamela**

The SA Communist Party in Gauteng resolved this week that, from 2009, the party should field its own candidates in all elections. **Chris Barron** asked SACP Gauteng secretary **Zico Tamela** ...


 * So you think it’s time to end the alliance?**

No, not to end the alliance, but to restructure it, to radically alter how it functions, to redefine its goals.


 * But you want the SACP to contest elections under its own banner?**

Definitely, definitely.


 * Doesn’t that mean that the SACP will be going up against the ANC?**

No, no. Remember, the alliance is not based on elections. It’s based on a broader programme of democratising South African society, of transforming people’s lives for the better. The issue of the SACP contesting elections independently is not about breaking the alliance, but certainly it will impact on how the alliance functions. And it will impact on the goals of the alliance because the SACP is a party of the socialist revolution, whereas the ANC is the party of the national democratic revolution. The alliance is a vehicle for the realisation of certain tasks, in this case the task of democratic revolution. There is no reason why the alliance cannot be reformulated, restructured to be a vehicle for the tasks of the socialist revolution.


 * If the SACP is going to contest elections under its own name, doesn’t that mean it will be standing against the ANC?**

No, certainly.


 * Am I right?**

Yes, you are right.


 * So how can it fight the ANC in elections and at the same time remain in an alliance with the ANC?**

The tasks of the democratic revolution do not belong only and exclusively to the ANC. The Communist Party also strives to lead the democratic revolution itself.


 * Aren’t you already doing this as part of the alliance that governs the country?**

But we are saying that is not adequate. The leadership of the democratic revolution is not something that is cast in stone, that forever must be a question of ANC leadership. We are saying the Communist Party is as much a leader of the democratic revolution as the ANC is. We are saying we must rethink the ANC leadership of the democratic revolution. We are saying the SACP must lead the democratic revolution itself. It must not lead only the socialist revolution, it must also lead the national democratic revolution.


 * I still don’t understand how you can fight your alliance partners in elections without breaking the alliance.**

It is true that at election time we will be contesting independently, but what we are saying is ...


 * That doesn’t make sense to me.**

There are many historical examples of that. Let’s take for example the Bolsheviks around 1918 ...


 * Isn’t this part of your problem — that the SACP is still living in 1918?**

What we are saying is that the fact that in 1994 and 1999 and 2004 we chose to fight elections under the banner of the ANC — that is not a divine thing, it is not cast in stone.


 * Why have you decided to end this arrangement?**

We feel that the class struggle demands that an independent voice of the working class must be heard in the legislatures — in Parliament, in the provincial legislatures and in local government.


 * But then, surely, the SACP must leave the alliance in order to give the working class its own voice?**

No, what we are saying is that the SACP must lead, not must leave, the alliance. The alliance now must be an SACP-led alliance.


 * How are you going to bring that about?**

Through championing the mass struggle that the working class is waging now, and also contesting elections. We are saying the alliance is subordinate to the tasks at hand. It is not the alliance first and then the tasks of the revolution, it’s the tasks of the revolution first and the alliance second. We must fight our own elections, but the alliance must be subordinate to that.


 * What about SACP members who are government ministers? Will they have to choose between the SACP and ANC?**

No, they won’t have to choose. They will have to follow the line of the SACP.


 * At election time, will they stand as the ANC or the SACP?**

They will be bound by the decisions of the Communist Party and therefore will be part of the Communist Party slate at elections.


 * If they stand as the ANC, will they be expelled?**

They can’t take a decision that is against the decision of the comrades. Should the comrades decide, then everybody will abide by the comrades’ decision.


 * From: http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Insight/Article.aspx?id=474573**

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