SACP+bosses+refuse+to+fight+elections+against+ANC



=SACP bosses refuse to fight elections against ANC=


 * S’THEMBISO MSOMI**

Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 13 March 2005
THE SA Communist Party’s highest decision-making body has come out against calls for the party to contest elections independent of the ANC.

In a discussion document circulated to members ahead of a special national congress next month, the SACP central committee says the party already wields enough political power as a member of the ANC-led tripartite alliance.

There have been growing calls within the SACP, especially from members of its Communist Youth League, for the party to contest national, provincial and local elections independent of the ANC.

Supporters of the go-it-alone option say they are frustrated by the fact that SACP members who get elected to political office on an ANC ticket are unable to formally articulate the SACP’s mandate in the national and provincial legislatures and councils. This view started gaining ground after the ANC and its alliance partners fell out over the adoption of the centrist Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy as the government’s economic policy in 1996.

Although it has remained a small group within the party, the independent school has been very vocal in recent months, forcing a number of provinces to debate the question.

The issue is now part of a number of policy debates that are set to dominate proceedings at the party’s special congress in the middle of next month.

The special congress — which will come just days before the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP hold their long-awaited alliance summit — has the power to change party policies. But it cannot elect new members of the central committee.

The call for an SACP electoral platform has also been boosted by surveys, conducted by left-leaning researchers, which claim that an independent “workers’ party” could win up to 17% of the vote and become the official opposition.

None of those proposing an independent electoral platform has so far suggested a complete break with the ANC.

Instead, they say the SACP could explore the following options:

The central committee says in its document that it is not in favour of any of the proposed options.
 * Running a fully fledged national electoral campaign;
 * Entering into a deal with the ANC whereby the ruling party would not put up candidates for certain designated municipalities;
 * Allowing a bloc of SACP members to stand on the ANC ticket but as communists with the right to speak independently of the ANC in bodies to which they would be elected.

It rejects the idea of a “non-aggression pact” as unrealistic.

“In the heat of an electoral campaign, how realistic is the idea of a friendly understanding between alliance partners — bearing in mind that we are not talking abstractly, but about a contest, on the turf of the same mass constituency... and in which victory means a paid position?” the central committee asks.

The committee also warns that contesting an election is “an extremely expensive business” which the SACP cannot afford.

“The SACP would certainly not be the beneficiary of major corporate or foreign donations — in this regard, our situation is quite different from [the Zimbabwean] Movement for Democratic Change’s situation,” the SACP says.

The discussion document warns against “the MDC option” — a reference to that movement coming about as a result of trade unionists, former members of Zanu-PF and other national liberation movements forming a new opposition party.

“The MDC has won every single major town and city in Zimbabwe, but its mayors are rendered powerless by legislation ... winning elections does not necessarily translate into winning power,” the central committee argues.


 * From http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/PrintMail/FinishPrint.aspx?ID=ST6A110620**