GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Blade Nzimande’s failed politics of compromise
‘Nzimande has escaped proper examination because he has found there is much political capital in opposing Zuma’
The SACP’s decision to contest the 2019 national elections is something of a distraction. The real issue is the re-election of general secretary Blade Nzimande. This is the man who has led the SACP into a crisis so profound that, for the sake of its own credibility, it has no option but to try to formally disassociate itself from its alliance partner, the ANC. And yet, he was re-elected. That Nzimande led the SACP into the crisis is a matter of record. A champion of Jacob Zuma, co-responsible for his rise to power and the augmentation of his demagogic self-interest, it was Nzimande who attached his party to Zuma’s coattails. At the height of Zuma’s power, it was Nzimande who took to the streets to call for The Spear, the controversial Brett Murray painting of Jacob Zuma, to be obliterated. "Don’t sell it," he would tell the baying mob, "it must not leave this country, it must remain here, it must be destroyed once and for good." How the loyal lapdog barked and yapped at the feet of ...
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