GEORGE MATLALA
Blade Nzimande is under unprecedented pressure from all quarters of the tripartite alliance to give up his influential position as general secretary of the SACP.
The plan to oust Nzimande is understood to have the backing of his detractors in the SACP, Cosatu, the ANC and its youth wings, ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and the SA Students’ Congress (Sasco).
The campaign to get rid of Nzimande, who is also the minister of higher education and training, is set to intensify after the municipal elections in May, when the fights for the control of the SACP, Cosatu and the ANC go to the streets.
Nzimande’s heckling by students in Pretoria recently, and marches to his department office by members of the Cosatu-affiliated National Education and Allied Health Workers Union (Nehawu) and Sasco, also last week, are said to be the beginning of an onslaught planned for the coming months.
SACP and Cosatu sources also claimed that the sacking of his wife, Phumelele Ntombela-Nzimande, as a group executive at the SABC was part of the scheme to clip Nzimande’s wings.
As the troubled broadcaster shed some of its top executives over the years, Ntombela-Nzimande was seen as an untouchable because of her political links.
But this time around, she could not escape getting the chop.
Nzimande is accused of ruling the party with an iron fist, purging dissenters and using his position to access government perks.
Sources in Cosatu and the SACP said that since his appointment as a cabinet minister, Nzimande had been toeing President Jacob Zuma’s line at the expense of the SACP, which, they said, was dying.
The latest gripe with Nzimande, the sources said, was his silence on the relationship between Zuma and the Gupta family.
The Guptas are in business with Zuma’s son Duduzane, and also employ his fiancée Gloria Ngema.
Some are angry that Nzimande did not, like Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, condemn Zuma’s relationship with the Guptas, but instead attacked those raising the issue.
As a result, some in the SACP deliberately instigated a resolution in terms of which Nzimande was deliberately tasked to raise the SACP’s concerns about the Guptas with Zuma.
Cosatu has been critical of the Guptas’s business deals and their reported influence over Zuma and several of his ministers.
It was expected that Nzimande, as was the case before he became a minister, would add his voice to the growing opposition to what has been termed the “Guptarisation” of the country.
Leaders on the Left were also unhappy with the SACP’s lack support for Cosatu’s criticism of the ANC’s economic plan, the New Growth Path, and the crippling public service strikes.
Concerns over Nzimande have morphed from mere ructions to a programme to ensure his removal.
SACP spokesman Malesela Maleka, a key Nzimande ally, said: “The SACP is quite aware of a well- co-ordinated political campaign to discredit the general secretary of the SACP in particular and other senior leaders of the party and create an impression that there are fundamental divisions in the organisation.
“There is a dedicated team working on digging dirt on the leadership of the SACP and it is committed to the politics of smear and innuendo in an attempt to further their objectives.”
Maleka said efforts to unseat Nzimande “will fail like they did in the past”.
Cosatu and the SACP will hold their elective conferences just months before the ANC’s all-important conference in Mangaung next year.
This means that the next few months will be characterised by a surge in political conflicts to capture the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP.
Mudslinging and war talk will take centre stage as politicians tussle to secure their futures; service delivery will probably take a back seat.
An SACP central committee member said last week: “After his appointment as a cabinet minister, Blade has not been critical on the presidency, including on the Guptas issue.
“There is a high level of factionalism in the SACP. People are petrified, they have never seen this level of terrorism.”
The plan to dislodge Nzimande was being carried out from Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal and was expected to easily penetrate Gauteng, which has traditionally given Nzimande problems.
SACP Gauteng chairman Nkosiphendule Kolisile is said to be at the forefront of the campaign to topple him.
In Limpopo, former SACP provincial secretary Soviet Lekganyane and suspended central committee member David Masondo are expected to lead the campaign against Nzimande.
Both Masondo and Lekganyane are MECs in Premier Cassel Mathale’s cabinet and were in Nzimande’s bad books because of their close links to youth league president Julius Malema, who has publicly clashed with Nzimande before.
Last week, Malema’s ally and youth league spokesman Floyd Shivambu launched a blistering attack on Nzimande on Facebook.
Shivambu mocked Nzimande for being booed by students at the Tshwane University of Technology, referring to him as “former general secretary of the SACP”.
He then added, when asked by several Facebook friends whether Nzimande was still general secretary: “I now understand that the ex-(general secretary) of the SACP angrily left the lecture because he was critically engaged by students and workers who are not pleased with his conduct.
“Comrades, a (general secretary) of the party is supposed to do certain things correctly and hold certain views with the Marxist-Leninist paradigm, and that doesn’t define the minister.
“He is a minister, but ideologically misguided and violating the constitution of the party. We should get used to calling him former or ex-(general secretary) because he will be removed soon.”
One of the comments referred to Nzimande as “a yellow communist”.
Among Cosatu’s big affiliates, the most critical of Nzimande are the National Union of Metalworkers of SA, and the SA Democratic Teachers Union.
A Cosatu leader said there was a strong feeling that Vavi should replace Nzimande.
“There is a view that Vavi must avail himself to be general secretary of the party,” the leader said.
Vavi blasted Nzimande for accepting a R1 million ministerial car and for his exorbitant hotel stays, which flew in the face of his communist background, and came at a time that ordinary citizens were told to tighten their belts, and that government spending on luxury cars and accommodation for Zuma’s bloated cabinet was in the spotlight.
Nehawu is expected to press harder on its demands for better management of Further Education and Training colleges while Sasco will step up its demands for free education
The plan to remove Nzimande is set to divide the SACP and Cosatu, because some of the communist party’s key leaders were also union leaders.
National Union of Mineworkers and Nehawu secretaries Frans Baleni and Fikile Majola serve in Nzimande’s leadership and are said to be unhappy about Vavi’s attacks on the SACP.
Nzimande has support in Mpumalanga, the Northern Cape and Western Cape.
He also has a key ally in Young Communist League national chairman Buti Manamela.
Maleka said the decision to get Nzimande into the government was made by the collective leadership of the SACP, in line with its strategy to occupy key sites of power.
“This was not personal choice of comrade Blade,” he said.
“The allegations levelled against comrade Blade have hallmarks of a lack of understanding of the collective nature in which SACP decisions are arrived at.”