Youth league dares SACP to pull leaders from unity government

The ANC Youth League has dared the SA Communist Party (SACP), a tripartite alliance partner, to recall all its deployees appointed to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s executive.

Youth league leader Collen Malatji on Tuesday said it did not make sense for the SACP to have people in the government of national unity (GNU) if the party believed its ally sold out.

SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila has criticised the ANC for setting up a GNU that includes the DA. Mapaila said it showed the ANC was led by neo-liberals. This faction, he said, was led by Ramaphosa.

Mapaila’s statements also raised the ire of ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula at the weekend. 

Mbalula reacted angrily to a podcast interview in which Mapaila labelled the decision to enter into the GNU with the DA as a “betrayal” and a “sell-out of the aspirations of our people”.

Mbalula fired off a series of posts on social media. “These outbursts are shocking. Nothing wrong if Solly doesn’t agree with the GNU, but calling names is really crossing the line and casting aspersions on ANC leaders. I find it disrespectful coming from an ally.”

Mbalula said he would raise this during the next alliance political council. 

Malatji on Tuesday tore into the SACP and Mapaila, urging them to show bravery by recalling their leaders and members who accepted appointments in Ramaphosa’s executive.

SACP national chair Blade Nzimande serves as the minister of science, technology & innovation, while second deputy general secretary David Masondo is deputy finance minister. Other SACP members and leaders who serve in Ramaphosa’s executive include Buti Manamela and Polly Boshielo, who are deputy ministers of higher education and police, respectively.

Malatji contended that if Mapaila insisted the GNU was a sell-out structure, the SACP members should be recalled. “Anyone who has a problem with the structure of the GNU must immediately withdraw their deployees, prepare to win the next elections on their own so that they can implement things the way they feel they should be implemented,” said Malatji.

Having deployees in the executive while calling the GNU a sell-out was a populist stance, he said. “The Solly Mapaila we know, a product of the youth league and Cosas and many other structures of the movement, is brave. We know he will either agree with the ANC, honour the GNU, or he will immediately withdraw those from the SACP that are in the GNU so that we’re seeing action, contest elections on his own and stop being under the state of the ANC. Now that’s the bravery we want from the SACP; anything else is cowardice,” said Malatji.

If the SACP believed it had gathered enough structures on the ground it could help the ANC regain 60% of the vote. “But they must urgently withdraw all their deployees because you can’t say we are a GNU of sell-outs when your national chair is there within the same GNU. It lacks a bit of consistency.”

TimesLIVE