Johannesburg - The SACP has defended the deployment of its leaders to the government and claimed it is being targeted for its growing influence.
Party general secretary Blade Nzimande on Wednesday told SACP members there was nothing wrong with SACP leaders being deployed to the government, and that the SACP was “inside and outside the state”.
He was addressing the first day of the SACP special national congress at the University of Johannesburg in Soweto on Wednesday.
The party has been criticised for its leaders’ deployment to the government while it was claiming to be “the vanguard of the working class”.
Since President Jacob Zuma came into office in 2009, SACP leaders have enjoyed considerable influence on government policy and have been appointed to key cabinet posts, including in economic portfolios.
Unlike during the two terms of former ANC president Thabo Mbeki and Nelson Mandela’s presidency, the SACP has also enjoyed significant influence in the alliance and been central to Zuma’s ascendancy to the Union Buildings.
Nzimande has been higher education minister since Zuma appointed his first cabinet in 2009, while his deputy, Jeremy Cronin, is a deputy minister in the Public Works Department.
The party’s chairman, Senzeni Zokwana, is minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, while its deputy chairman, Thulas Nxesi, is public works minister.
Ebrahim Patel and Rob Davies are some of the senior SACP leaders who hold key cabinet positions, particularly in the economic cluster.
Nzimande said there was nothing untoward about the SACP being in the government.
“We are the South Africa Communist Party, we belong to this country, we fought for this country, we liberated this country, and we are participating in its rebuilding and reconstruction. When you insult us you say we are in government. Why not? Whose government is this? Who brought about this government?
“The very same people who are saying we must not be in government fought against us in 1990 for the ANC to be in government. As the Communist Party, we are everywhere, both inside and outside the state,” said Nzimande.
He alluded to the growth of the party’s membership as testament to its growing influence, and noted that it was leading to calls for the SACP to abandon the ANC.
“The rapid and historically unprecedented growth of our membership - now standing at some 240 000 - attests to this.
“It is by no accident that there are increasing complaints in the right-wing media about the growing influence of the SACP within government and within our alliance,” said Nzimande.
Earlier, Zokwana had criticised the new leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers, which is seen to be largely sympathetic to expelled former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
He described new NUM general secretary David Sipunzi as reckless. Shortly after his election to replace Frans Baleni, Sipunzi expressed support for the National Union of Metalworkers’ return to Cosatu.
“I have listened to the new NUM leadership, its secretary. He is reckless, he wants to rewrite history. We must defeat that. Leaders don’t write history as they are sent to the throne, they are guided by principles of the organisation.”
Zokwana also told delegates to forget about Vavi as a comrade.
“Anybody who believes that Vavi is a comrade is mistaken, he is not. He left us long ago, he is no longer part of us,” he said.
He also took a swipe at the EFF, saying it was using the plight of the families of slain Marikana miners to entrench hatred for the ANC.
The congress was on Wednesday attended by, among others, senior leaders of the ANC including treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize, secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and his deputy Jessie Duarte.
ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to address the SACP congress.
The Star