Vishwas+Satgar,+Has+the+ANC+Failed

Has the ANC Failed?: the South African Communist Party and the Struggle for Socialist Democracy in South Africa

 * //“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently”//**

[From Rosa Luxemburg, //The Russian Revolution, p.69//]


 * Introduction**

This document does not start the debate about electoral options for the SACP, but is meant to contribute to an existing debate. Throughout the nineties, debate about the question of electoral options has been suppressed in the SACP, at least at a formal leadership level, for a host of reasons—reasons which in themselves need to be interrogated. Despite the suppression of the debate at a leadership level, debate and discussion about electoral options has continued informally in the ranks of the SACP amongst many activists and leaders. Part of the impetus to raise the electoral question for many of these comrades is a rejection of what many see as dogmatic formulas and orthodoxies of the national liberation struggle. For example, many question the continued relevance of political concepts such as the “ANC is a national liberation movement” (and according to many “forever”) and the jaded formula of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” (the linchpin of Stalinised Marxism–Leninism). Rather, many comrades have been keen to find the most appropriate methods of struggle—under new and increasingly complex conditions in the National Democratic Revolution—to advance the interests of the workers and the poor and to construct a socialist democracy in South Africa. Thus, the time has come for a more open and thorough debate about the question of electoral options despite the possible “risks” and “dangers.”

The approach taken to the debate on electoral options in this document deals with the following issues:


 * SACP Strategy and Socialist Democracy
 * Has the ANC Failed?
 * Our historical experience of electoral politics
 * The option of standing for elections Not in opposition to but With the ANC
 * Are we ready?
 * Will the ANC object to sharing power?


 * SACP Strategy and Socialist Democracy**

Since 1929, and especially in the period before 1990 during the resistance to colonialism of a special type and its apartheid system, the SACP placed its hopes for a path to socialism on building the African National Congress as a multi-class liberation movement under the leadership of the working class. Grounded in an analysis of historical conditions, this position was correct until 1989, when the SACP was still formally planning armed insurrection. This strategic approach of the path to socialism via the ANC held within it many possible scenarios. One scenario that the SACP envisioned was that of a successful, but protracted, overthrow of the apartheid regime through an intense civil war. This scenario was obviously at great price to the country. One result of this possible scenario was the disbanding of the ANC and/or the SACP and the refounding of a vanguard party (of “Scientific Socialism”) in a one-party state. This vanguard would have led the construction of the “Socialist Republic of South Africa” on the ruin and destruction of the old system. In this scenario, state power would have been in the form of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

For a host of reasons, history did not turn out this way. Rather we are now on the terrain of representative democracy and a capitalist-dominated world both locally and globally.

In 1994 the SACP did not register as a political party and contest elections on its own. Instead the SACP provided unconditional support to the ANC and its electoral campaign. Again in 1999 and 2004, the Party continued down the same path giving absolute support to the ANC’s electoral campaigns. While this might have been the correct decision in order to assist the ANC make the transition from liberation movement to ruling party, it has also affected the SACP (and not always positively).

Within this political configuration the SACP’s general strategic approach to advance our program for socialism relied on having access to state power indirectly through the ANC. The RDP and the numerous ANC conference resolutions and election manifestos were meant to be the means through which the SACP program could be transmitted into the state and policy implementation. In other words, through the terrain of electoral politics the ANC--despite being contested by numerous forces domestically and internationally--would implement elements of socialism. This “ANC path to socialism”, as a strategic approach on the terrain of multi-party democracy, has neither been experimented with elsewhere in the world nor has worked over the past ten years in South Africa. Even in the so called “post-GEAR” period, the “ANC path to socialism” will not advance, in a meaningful way, the SACP’s program to build elements of socialism now.

Arguments against the “ANC path to socialism” approach are as follows:

(1) The international experience of left strategy on a democratic terrain has either amounted to social democratic reformism or attempts at “hegemonic revolutionary reform.” The former approach (social democratic reformism) attempts change in a piecemeal way in which reforms are unconnected, the methods of implementing reforms are top down and technocratic, and the capitalist class is accommodated and pleased (i.e. the accumulation process is not disturbed but managed in capital’s interests). In addition, state power is an end in itself and “electoralism” dominates the objectives of political parties. Ultimately, social democratic reformism does not fundamentally challenge or go beyond the capitalist system. While there are gains for the workers and the poor, these are tenuous and normally rolled back by the logic of capital accumulation – the small advances made by the working class and poor are only sustained through class struggle. Today’s South Africa resembles this type of social democratic reformism and over the past ten years the SACP has supported it in practice. In other words, the SACP’s approach, in practice, of the “ANC path to socialism” is reformist.

The alternative strategy of “hegemonic revolutionary reform,” which the SACP ascribes to in theory, requires winning a democratic consensus in society for important programmatic reforms that reallocate the surplus of society to the workers and poor, redirects the accumulation process to meet social and domestic need, unleashes individual and collective working class energies from below, and ensures a deepening of participatory democracy. In short, “hegemonic revolutionary reform” seeks to construct through the active participation of all classes, but under the leadership of the working class, an alternative mode of production (or mixed economy) with a socialist orientation. In this approach state power and the market are subordinated to the aspirations and needs of the working class and the poor; capital is commanded and led through the combined instruments of a developmental state and a mass movement. However, for this approach to work the SACP must be directly in the state in order to ensure a collective political will drives and sequences implementation of programmatic reforms that are defended and advanced by working class and poor forces from below. Broadly similar approaches are currently being used in Venezuela, Kerala (India), and Brazil (each project having its own complexities and challenges) in their efforts to ensure democracy delivers on its promises to the workers and the poor in the periphery of the capitalist world system. We in the SACP cannot “outsource” the task of building elements of socialism to our comrades in the ANC.

(2) The approach of the “ANC path to socialism” is also naive about the realities of state power. Many decisions taken at ANC conferences are contested by the state bureaucracy, capital, and international forces. Thus, if comrades are not firm in their resolve to implement ANC decisions through their positions in government and the masses are not mobilized behind these decisions, then most of the resolutions are not implemented as policy.

(3) ANC organizational structures have tended to conflate positions in government with ANC organizational positions. This has disengaged the ANC from civil society and has made ANC structures the center of coordinating its mass membership rather than coordinating mass forces. The “ANC path to socialism” approach links the SACP to this shortcoming and cuts us off from civil society

(4) The intra-alliance battles during the adoption and implementation of GEAR created a great deal of confusion in the ranks of the working class. During this time the “ANC path to socialism” approach added to the confusion and disarray. Today, many argue that we are in a “post-GEAR” period and therefore the conditions are conducive for a re-assertion of the “ANC path to socialism.” This is a short sighted position and will have difficulties when (a) macro-economic balances run into difficulties and the demand driven frenzy of the middle classes (old and new) requires cooling off or tighter macro management and the workers and the poor are squeezed to assist the economy make the adjustments (boom and bust cycles and so on) and (b) when the micro-reforms intended to “cut the costs of doing business” start undermining hard won labour law gains by the trade unions. What is the “ANC path to socialism” position going to do and tell us?

(5) Finally, the “ANC path to socialism” has divided the SACP between those who have a stake in or careers through the ANC’s project versus those who are committed to the SACP program. In the former case, accountability is first to the ANC and its decisions, with the SACP’s interests secondary or in most instances ignored. The pro-SACP program comrades want to take the SACP’s program beyond the ANC, into society and to a wider array of progressive forces, to ensure a hegemonic consensus is built around the party’s program. This schism has ultimately undermined the effectiveness and cohesion of our party—and thus we march on the same spot not knowing which way to go.


 * Has the ANC Failed?**

For the SACP to contemplate electoral options it has to ask the difficult question: Has the ANC failed? And more precisely, has it failed the National Democratic Revolution? Many on the left argue that the ANC has abandoned its left credentials with the 1996 adoption of a “home grown” neo-liberal program. In other words, it has become a party of monopoly and transnational capital. Within the SACP a trenchant but measured critique of economic policy choices made by the ANC in 1996 did develop. During this period the contradictions in the Tri-partite Alliance reached, what some say, their worst expression in the history of the South African Revolution – the SACP became the de facto official opposition in the Tri-partite Alliance, joined by COSATU on occasion.

Since the 2004 elections the ANC has shifted to the left, not because of the SACP, but because of the ANC’s own pressures on the delivery front. The SACP has responded excitedly and has re-affirmed the leadership role of the ANC in the NDR, blowing kisses and tightly grabbing on to points of convergence (celebrating concessions made to it) and, of course, delicately dealing with points of difference. In short, the SACP is moving with the ebb and flow of ANC electoralism and governance rather than tactically guided by its own imperatives.

Despite the pretence of a revolutionary alliance on the terrain of electoralism and reformism, there are still deep and latent ambivalences in the SACP. During the past ten years of democracy the SACP has had to understand and rudely awaken to the fact that the African National Congress is a ruling party and the most powerful political organization in South Africa and Africa today. And despite the ANC’s intimate historical association with the SACP, the SACP has had to come to realize that its relationship with the ANC is not necessarily the only or the most important relationship for the ANC. Given the asymmetrical power relationship and their historical ties, the SACP is likely to throw its toys out of cot if the ANC is deemed to have done something it does not agree with.

However, if we go beyond the vacillation from snapping at the heals of the ANC to praise singing, it is apparent that the SACP has not worked out a clear strategy and set of tactics, in practice, to deal with the ANC on the terrain of governance and electoral politics. Instead we argue that we have been “contained” and that “there is a concerted campaign against us,” but that “we have made some gains” and so on. While there might be an element of truth in this, we still have to come to terms with two fundamental political realities:

(1) the ANC has been highly successful as a liberation movement and has, notwithstanding the specific systemic conditions domestically and internationally, managed one of the most difficult and complex political transitions in the world. It has consolidated power as a ruling party within the institutional political system; is an astute nation builder and unifier of a very divided country; has managed and stabilized a modern capitalist economy; is busy transforming and building a powerful state; and has positioned South Africa strategically in the post Cold War world order, both on the continent and in the world.

(2) The SACP, on the other hand, has failed in many of its stated objectives and not the ANC. For the greater part of the nineties, with the exception of the past few years with its new emphasis on grassroots organising, the SACP has not done enough of what is required to achieve its own ambitious plans for socialism in South Africa. In particular, the SACP has not ensured the development of individual and collective capacities for people-driven change, the eradication of poverty, the construction of a developmental state, and the transformation of the forces of production to meet social need. The fundamental reason for this failure is that the SACP has sat back and expected its alliance relationship and overlapping membership with the ANC to yield the socialist programmatic outcomes it wants. In practice the SACP has operated as (a) a collective opportunist waiting for concessions from the ANC and (b) a socialist watchdog that makes a lot of noise when upset.

In arguing that the ANC has succeeded and the SACP has failed, does not mean that I am arguing that the SACP should not contemplate an electoral option. Instead, it is important at this historical moment in the National Democratic Revolution for the SACP to abandon the idea of achieving socialism through the ANC (i.e. the “ANC path to socialism”), and more importantly, through short cuts like dual membership and what has become a tactical (rather than strategic) alliance. This is not an argument against dual membership and the alliance, but rather is an argument for the SACP, if it is serious about a socialist project, to shrug off its old strategic approach: that is, the path to power and ultimately socialism is through the ANC as a liberation movement – this is a self defeating approach for the SACP on the terrain of multi-party competition and reformism.

In addition, the ANC has arrived precisely where it should, for the National Democratic Revolution, and even if it could go further it should not. More importantly, it has been transforming South Africa without the SACP at the “political center” (the place where all key strategic and political decisions are made). Those who make the most noise in the SACP in favor of an “ANC path to socialism” have not been part of this political center and have not been responsible for the most important decisions taken in our National Democratic Revolution over the past few years.

Despite all of this the ANC has given the left, including the SACP, important conditions to work with in order to advance a socialist program.

These conditions include:

(1) a democracy free of the threat of counter-revolution and with political pluralism and tolerance;

(2) the ANC as a political party has maintained, albeit with difficulty sometimes, a center or center-left orientation that has managed to accommodate multi-class interests although modestly for the working class and the poor.

To this extent the SACP as an organised Left force has more to work with to create further conditions for socialist advance than many Left formations in the world. What the SACP shares in common with the ANC, like its minimum political program the Freedom Charter, has to become the center of focus for the alliance partners as opposed to dual membership and the obsession with keeping the ANC in an old national liberation mould. This common programmatic glue is more fundamental and important and thus has to be the primary basis for ANC-SACP relations on the terrain of governance and electoral politics as well as for their future relationship in post-apartheid South Africa.

Thus, the fundamental political and strategic question for the SACP is how to work with the ANC to implement their common historical minimum program rather than how to maintain the ANC’s third world national liberation movement character. How is the SACP going to do this in such a way that it ends its politics of collective opportunism and prevents itself becoming a reformist Communist Party with radical rhetoric? More sharply, how does the SACP end its left-wing watch-dog role over the ANC and gets on with the serious tasks of creating capacity, momentum and commitment to elements of socialism while still being in the Tri-partite Alliance?

Part of the answer lies in what the SACP has already been developing and doing. Since its 11th Congress the SACP has focused more concertedly on developing a program-centered activism that links with the needs and concerns of local communities and workers. It has also launched important campaigns, like the Financial Sector Campaign, the Campaign for Land and Agrarian Reform and the Co-operative Movement Campaign, which all feed into building a mass-based party movement increasingly capable of harnessing mass pressure and power from below to build elements of socialism. However, while all of this is consistent with the medium-term vision of the SACP to shift the balance of forces in favor of the working class over the next ten years, it is still not sufficient to achieve its programmatic objectives. Mass power without being directly married with state power cannot yield the programmatic outcomes the SACP envisages for socialist democracy in South Africa. A “vanguard party” moored only on the terrain of civil society and outside the state can only become a lobbyist for reforms or a pressure group. It is in this context that the SACP has to consider contesting //state// //power//, but not contesting the ANC.

To further make the case for a tactical electoral arrangement with the ANC, it would be useful to briefly look at the SACP’s own history of electoral politics.


 * Our Historical Experience of Electoral Politics**

From the documented history on the SACP and political biographies of many of its leaders, it is apparent that the party has been flexible about its strategies and tactics to achieve national liberation and socialism in South Africa. The South African Communist Party (or CPSA as it was known in the first four decades of its existence) was the first non-racial political organization to contest elections in South Africa. In 1929 after the adoption of the Black Republic Thesis, which committed the party to the cause of the black oppressed, the party contested elections in areas of the Cape where non-Europeans had the vote. Both Wolton and S.P. Bunting led elections campaigns, the former in the Cape Flats and the latter in Tembuland (or Transkei). Bunting’s elections campaign was especially tough and was waged with limited resources and with constant police harassment. He, his wife and a translator traveled from place to place in the Transkei with a hired vehicle often eating very little food and going hungry on the electoral trail. S.P. Bunting received only 289 votes and Wolton only 93 votes – both lost their campaigns. The point of this SACP election campaign was not so much the electoral victory, but the idea of getting the SACP into rural South Africa and the imagination of its predominantly African population as well as exposing the racist nature of the political system.

Later in the 1940s under the leadership of Moses Kotane and Bill Andrews the party continued using the electoral tactic to press its cause for a democratic South Africa and to take up issues of local concern. During the 1940s when the ANC was in shambles it was the SACP that was engaged in grassroots organizing to address the local and immediate concerns of people. From 1944 to 1947 the party took up issues in townships ranging from support for the squatter movement, food raids, the right to brew beer, rent and bus boycotts and opened night schools to promote literacy. However, the party did not walk on one leg. Mass-based grassroots organizing was married to contestation within the limited electoral space. In townships the party contested advisory board elections and in white urban centers it contested local and national government elections. The best known examples are the elections of Hilda Watts as a Johannesburg City Councilor and Sam Kahn as a member of parliament. In short, the party used elected positions as a tactical extension of its mass organizing work on the ground to put pressure in government institutions to meet the needs of the people.

In 1948 the party launched an exciting initiative to expose the exclusionary and racist character of the electoral system. In the 1948 national election, when the National Party (NP) won the majority of the votes, the party entered the election contest on a platform challenging the legitimacy of a white only vote and argued for equal rights for all. This initiative was supported by party allies (trade unions, the ANC and the SAIC). To galvanise support from its allies the party organised a mass non-racial conference under the slogan “Votes for All!”. According to Rusty Bernstein this conference marked one of the very first non-racial events in South African history and demonstrated that a loose coalition of the Congresses, the Communist Party and trade unions could jointly mount a popular campaign that served as a model for later non-racial political campaigns.


 * The option of standing for elections NOT in opposition to but WITH the ANC**

Thus far the argument of this document has been weighted against what has been called the “ANC path to socialism” position. On the other extreme, and which is an imminent possibility given the trajectory of the SACP, is a position espousing a “protracted break” from the ANC. This position approaches the alliance relationship in a tumultuous manner (but tactically harmonized when convenient) that will eventually lead to a fractious break with the ANC when the SACP is supposedly strong enough to contest state power. The break-away scenario from the ANC will have fundamental ramifications in the ANC and within the ranks of the organised working class. Besides the conflict, hostility and enmity that could result from this kind of approach, the risks for the National Democratic Revolution are very great – the evolution and maturation of democracy in South Africa could be stopped in its tracks.

Hence, there is a strong argument for an electoral option for the SACP based on a negotiated power sharing arrangement with the ANC. Rather than contesting against the ANC, the SACP should contest elections where it is strongest - organizationally and in terms of influence – with ANC support and vice versa. This is not the “big bang” election contest route in which the SACP raises the stakes on everything for everyone.

In practice, an election contest based on the strength of the SACP could work as follows: if an SACP branch in a particular community is well organised and has the trust and support of the community, then the SACP should lead the joint alliance elections effort in that constituency – that is, the SACP would provide the candidate for the election in that community with the support of all ANC members and structures in that area. In the current situation, such an approach to power sharing with the ANC will merely give the SACP a toehold or slight inroad into the formal political system in South Africa and will not threaten the lion’s share of the ANC’s electoral support. Such a modest positioning and sharing of power in the political system should be sufficient for the SACP to start taking responsibility through the state for its programmatic objectives. Such a formal tactical electoral agreement with the ANC could remain in place for ten years.

The tactical electoral agreement envisaged will cover both local government elections and national/provincial elections. In short, the ANC/SACP/COSATU alliance will have a common election platform and campaign, but the SACP will have its own list of candidates based on the constituencies to be contested which would be agreed to with the ANC. All SACP candidates elected would be directly accountable to the SACP and mechanisms would need to be put in place by the SACP to ensure this happens.


 * Are we ready?**

The negotiated power sharing arrangement being argued for and its electoral approach can be used both in the forthcoming local government elections and the national/provincial elections. However, one of the main objections raised is whether the SACP will be ready. Again, this is not a “big bang” election option. Hence, the following arguments in favor of a negotiated power sharing arrangement can be made. First, the SACP is not going it alone. Just like the ANC has contested elections with SACP and COSATU support over the years, the SACP would receive the support of the ANC and COSATU in the framework argued for. Secondly, if the emphasis is on the more organised and stronger branches of the SACP, then the entire apparatus of the organization could be deployed to support these focused areas of elections campaign work. Thirdly, with the SACP registering as a political party it can more aggressively fundraise for its very modest campaign, and even internationalise this challenge and mobilize international Left financial, technical and other support for its campaign. Fourthly, the SACP is organizationally better organised than the PAC, the Independent Democrats and other numerically small political formations in South Africa that have contested elections. The SACP has 60 districts, approximately 450 branches and a core cadreship of 30 000 – this can surely have an impact in a modest electoral effort (At its most vibrant times it had a much smaller membership. For example, estimates put it at 3000 strong in 1950 when it was banned and in 1989, when it was trying to orchestrate an insurrection, between 500 to 2000). Finally, with all the grassroots organizing the SACP has been doing around co-operatives, decentralization, people’s housing, food security and land reform, and the financial sector it is better placed than the ANC in some areas to make the links between mass initiatives and state power. The SACP understands where the blockages are with government delivery on the ground and can use this insight in the state to accelerate delivery and transform the state into a developmental institution.


 * Will the ANC object to sharing power?**

Many who have been wedded to the “ANC path to socialism” are quick to rebut any thinking on electoral options for the SACP as too “risky,” “naive” and so on. Yet, it is mainly these comrades that have gone to war with the ANC leadership and have referred to the “Zanu-fication” of the ANC, the “petite bourgeoisie nationalists at the helm of the ANC” and so on. Contrary to the labeling campaign, the ANC leadership is a seasoned, mature and very advanced political leadership that is not obsessed with having a monopoly over political power for the mere sake of power. Actually, they are the recipients of such a monopoly of political power, not the creators of it. The historically oppressed have given them this power not for an individual or group to do with it as they please, but for the sake of advancing the democratization and transformation of the country from a racist, exploitative and divided past to a prosperous, equitable and democratic country.

The engagement with the ANC on the electoral question is also not about passively receiving a “yes” or “no.” The standpoint from which the ANC needs to be engaged is around the challenge of advancing the National Democratic Revolution in South Africa – it is about advancing the economic emancipation of the working class and poor majority and the deepening of democracy (marrying state power and mass power).

From this standpoint the following arguments are likely to be considered by the ANC:

Argument 1: In 1994 the SACP did not press its case for electoral space, although it had (and has) a legitimate right as much as the ANC in the South African Revolution. In the ten years since the first democratic election the SACP has not disappeared, despite the ideological crisis of “Stalinised Marxism-Leninism” after the collapse of Eastern Europe and despite the wishes of our enemies. In fact the SACP has grown and continues to grow from strength to strength, by all qualitative and quantitative indicators. It has rethought its Marxism in several respects and is purposive about left renewal of the socialist project. In the scheme of South African politics today, the South African Communist Party is a serious factor and is well poised to become a political force in its own right. For the maturation of democracy in South Africa the most important question we are all faced with is: how do you bring the SACP into the formal institutional political system without creating instability and uncertainty in the country? The time has come to answer this question and the ANC as the most important nation building and democratizing force in South African politics should play its role in this regard.

The proposal in this document is that the ANC should bring the SACP into the formal political system on the terms of the ANC and in a modest way which does not upset the dominance of the ANC in government and the country. The proposal in this document is for a **managed entry** of the SACP into the political system – the ANC as the ruling party, mandated to govern South Africa in the interests of all South Africans, should see the task of managing the entry of the SACP into the formal political system as in the **national interest** of all South Africans.

Argument 2: Many argue that it takes a democracy about 25 years or a generation to mature – that is to define its institutions of political discourse, the ideological spectrum, and rountinise its functioning according to the rule of law and the constitution. While we have come a long way the **model of democracy** we are building will be incomplete without the SACP being included – the most important organised left force in the country. The inclusiveness of South African democracy, its ability to tolerate ideological views from the “right” to the “left” end of the spectrum can only be truly matured if the SACP has its place in the political system. This political task should be considered as necessary so that in the course of the next 15 years South Africa is socialized to appreciate the diversity and pluralism of political views that shape it and inform its direction. Such a model of **inclusiveness and tolerance** (having the Right and Left in the political system) is also what we need to share with Africa as part of the African Renaissance and democratization challenge facing the continent.

Argument 3: Flowing from the above argument and consistent with the general perspective of this document is that the ANC cannot be and should not strive to be simultaneously nation builder, leader of the country, and “vanguard Communist party.” The latter task should be left to the SACP. The current center-left orientation of the ANC should not be about marginalizing or usurping the role of the SACP, but about creating space for it to advance its socialist program. Given the conditions faced by the country, the continent and the South, the ANC should concentrate on the most important task of **leading the country**, while allowing the SACP to **compliment** it on the state building and economic front as we build a mixed economy, with a strong state sector, a co-operative sector and private sector. Hence, the socialist strategy that the SACP is pursuing, to make this contribution, should be buttressed by giving the SACP a place in the political system (as has been proposed).

Argument 4: A single party or individual cannot succeed in managing the contradictions thrown up by a complex political and economic transition, particularly in a democracy where the time span of political office is limited. Neither can the SACP or ANC just go it alone in what is a historically unprecedented project on the African continent – pushing democracy to the limits to resolve the national, gender and class question. Both the SACP and ANC need each other now and for a long time to come. Opening, even a modest space for the SACP in the political system, further **solidifies and strengthens** what is the most important political relationship in the history of modern South Africa: the **ANC/SACP/COSATU Alliance**. This is absolutely necessary for a stable and democratic future for the country.

Argument 5: Local government is clearly the weakest link in the governance system. Capacity constraints, incompetence, corruption, a lack of delivery and most importantly discontent amongst the people are extremely rife and widespread. This is reflected in the trend of growing electoral support for the political opposition and sometimes violent outbursts that have been occurring in local communities against local councilors and local government. The forthcoming **local government elections** is not going to be an easy ride for the ANC. Bringing the SACP into the equation can go a long way in stemming the re-alignment away from the Tri-partite Alliance and limiting the space for a new left opposition to emerge. Most importantly, bringing the SACP into the local government system will also assist in solving some of the problems the country is facing, within the strategic approach of “hegemonic revolutionary reform” and ensuring decentralization to local communities – working with both state and mass power. In short, with the SACP in local government many new left approaches and solutions can be experimented with, in an unapologetic way, to ensure developmental governance takes root and delivery happens.


 * Conclusion**

The South African Communist Party is not about political power for its leaders and neither is it hungry for political power for the sake of rivaling another organization or just for the sake of being a powerful political force. It has always been and continues to be a serious political organization wanting to contribute to the political and economic liberation of the historically oppressed, in particular the African working class and poor majority, that have through their sweat and creation of “value” made South Africa what it is today. It has in its long history sacrificed a great deal to ensure the liberation movement and most importantly the Revolution succeeds and nobody in South Africa can question its legitimate place in the democratic order.

At the same time, the question of electoral options facing the SACP has to be approached with a great deal of caution and serious reflection, primarily because it is integrally tied up with the future of the country and the South African National Democratic Revolution. It has to be mediated by “foresight”, as Cd. Raymond Mhlaba taught us when sharing thoughts about his revolutionary life on a radio interview before he left us, and definitely not short term opportunism. The time has come for this question to be debated and addressed by all the liberation forces at the center of the South African struggle.

The contribution made in this document is not the first or last word on this question. Its primary intention has been about moving the debate beyond a pro or anti- ANC issue or the normal for or against the Tri-partite Alliance debate. I have written this document with the permission of the Central Committee of the SACP and would not have written it otherwise. This contribution is being made, with the revolutionary spirit of Cd. Chris Hani in mind, so that the South African Communist Party is courageous and bold enough to take its rightful place in contemporary South Africa without being sidetracked into opportunistic posturing and historical formulae that are not going to work. The birth of this debate has been painful and is likely to enter stormy waters. Many in the ranks of the SACP will want to undermine or stop this debate because they have a lot to lose at a personal level. We must watch for this and keep the debate on track.

While the struggle around the electoral options for the SACP continues, my appeal to all those who are principled in their loyalty to the SACP, is simple: stiffen your resolve and continue building the SACP, in an uncompromising way, into a strong and powerful programmatic political vanguard of the working class and poor, so that all those who have come before us would be proud.

Our time has come, let us be ready.


 * Author: Vishwas Satgar is the Gauteng Secretary of the South African Communist Party.**