SACP to contest by-elections in Metsimaholo, Free State Province
9 October 2017
The South African Communist Party (SACP) Political Bureau met on 6 and 7 October 2017 in the City of Tshwane. This being its first meeting since it was elected after the 14th Party Congress, held in July, the Politburo discussed strategies to give effect to the resolutions of the Congress, including resolutions on the relationship between the ANC-led tripartite alliance and the SACP to state power. The Politburo received a report from the Party's Free State Province, making a special request for approval to contest elections in Metsimaholo local municipality.
The aim of the request was to ensure the revolutionary spirit of collective leadership, democratic consensus-seeking consultation and to give play to the primary position of the community in decision-making, in line with the Freedom Charter's principle that the people shall govern. The goal of the request was to ensure that governance is used as a platform to serve the needs of the people, wholeheartedly, as opposed to corrupt, captured, factional, private or elite interests that do not care about Alliance protocols, rules and the law.
The Politburo considered the request in the context of the 14th Party Congress' mandate to its Central Committee to develop a road map for the SACP to actively contest elections, either within the umbrella of a reconfigured alliance, or, if the alliance is not reconfigured, on its own or through broad popular fronts. The question the Politburo had to answer was whether the road map must be a desktop and boardroom exercise, or a living process anchored in an active assessment of, and political work in favour of the people to alter, the continuously changing realities. It was decided that a detailed examination of the realities, a situational analysis in Metsimaholo, and an extensive consultation with local communities, including mass democratic movement formations, must be conducted, informing the final decision to contest. The process is currently in motion to contest elections in Metsimaholo, in that order.
