Oscar Mabuyane opens door to ANC-SACP cooperation after elections - IOL

ANC Eastern Cape chair Oscar Mabuyane says the ANC and SACP should consider working together after the November 4 elections where results allow progressive forces to govern.

ANC Eastern Cape chair Oscar Mabuyane has opened the door to the ANC and SACP working together after the November 4 local government elections, despite the parties contesting the poll separately.

“The more profound question is what happens after 4 November,” Mabuyane said.

“The morning after the elections, unemployment will still confront us. Poverty will remain. Inequality will remain. The land question will remain.”

Mabuyane was delivering the ANC’s message of support at the SACP’s Red October launch in Great Kei on the weekend.

The SACP is contesting the elections independently of the ANC, with Mabuyane saying the outcome could create circumstances for progressive forces to work together in municipalities.

“Where electoral outcomes create circumstances in which progressive forces can cooperate in exercising municipal state power, we must first ask whether there is a programme around which we can govern together,” he said.

He warned against making political positions the basis of any post-election arrangement.

“That conversation cannot merely concern positions. It cannot simply become: Who becomes Mayor? Who becomes Speaker? Who becomes Chief Whip? Who receives which portfolio? That would reduce revolutionary politics to the arithmetic of office,” he said.

Mabuyane said the focus should instead be on rebuilding municipalities, creating employment, tackling corruption, strengthening public institutions and advancing developmental local government.

Mabuyane said the ANC was entering the election in a more vulnerable position than at any previous local government election since 1994.

“The ANC no longer possesses the political power it once commanded. And we must resist the temptation to explain this exclusively through the behaviour of our opponents. Some of our wounds are self-inflicted,” he said.

He linked the erosion of confidence to organisational weakness, factionalism, governance challenges, declining municipal capacity and a trust deficit.

“History does not grant any political organisation a permanent mandate. Every generation must earn anew the confidence of the people,” Mabuyane said.

Mabuyane also raised the prospect of reconfiguring the Tripartite Alliance after the election.

“Perhaps history is compelling us to confront a question we have postponed for too long: the reconfiguration of the Tripartite Alliance,” he said.

“The post-4 November political environment may compel us finally to give concrete meaning to that concept.”

He said this would require a discussion about the alliance’s strategic purpose, decision-making, the role of organised labour, the ANC-SACP relationship and its programme.

Mabuyane also said SACP members holding positions in the state should not be removed because the party is contesting the election independently.

“I think as ANC we should not hound SACP members out of positions they occupy across the state merely because the SACP has decided to contest elections independently as some are also members of the ANC in their own right,” he said.

He said public office holders should be assessed on competence, integrity, performance and commitment to transformation.

“We must resist transforming contradictions among allies into antagonisms among enemies,” Mabuyane said.

Mabuyane acknowledged that the ANC and SACP would compete for votes before November 4, but urged members to avoid deepening tensions.

“There will be political differences. There will be criticism. There will probably be moments of tension,” he said.

“But comrades must exercise political discipline, exercise restraint and avoid deepened contradictions as we will need each other soon.”

He said the parties’ shared history should not be undone by the election.

“We have buried Comrades together. We went to prison together. We went into exile together. We organised underground together. We fought Apartheid together. And we constructed the democratic state together,” Mabuyane said.

“An election must therefore not suddenly persuade us that we have become historical enemies.”

Mabuyane said the parties could enter the election under different banners but would still face the same challenges afterwards.

“We may enter 4 November under different banners. But on 5 November, history will still confront us with the same South Africa,” he said.

“The ANC remains your strategic ally. The SACP remains part of our Alliance.”