A joint Alliance reconfiguration platform

Alliance Political Council

November 2019

TOWARDS A RECONFIGURED ALLIANCE 

A joint Alliance reconfiguration platform

CHAPTER 1: 

Introduction

• This common Alliance reconfiguration paper is anchored in four initial discussion documents and responses by the Alliance formations. The first discussion document on the reconfiguration of the Alliance was produced by the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the second by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The third discussion document was produced by the African National Congress (ANC) in response to the SACP and COSATU papers, while the fourth was produced by the SACP, replying to the ANC’s response. The South African National Civics Organisation (SANCO) made an oral representation at an Alliance Political Council that considered the papers, as did the other Alliance formations in addition to their discussion documents. 
• What the above indicates is that this been an extensive process of engagement within the Alliance towards its reconfiguration. At the heart of this process lies the unity and organisational renewal project, thus the necessity to move with the times. The process involves a conscious effort to guide the evolution of the Alliance and maintain and deepen its strategic relevance towards the fulfilment of its historical mission.  
• The main historical and theoretical basis for the Alliance is noted in the four initial Alliance formations papers and the subsequent engagements that took place. This paper is therefore a synthesis towards a common reconfiguration platform. The paper is arranged into four chapters, including this brief introductory chapter. 
• Chapter 2, entitled the ‘Revolutionary Alliance’, presents summaries on the nature and character of Alliance formations and their historical missions, and thus those of the Alliance. 
• Entitled the ‘Shared strategy of struggle and basic programme’, Chapter 3 covers the subject of its title.
• Chapter 4, which has already been presented to, and considered by the Alliance Political Council, is entitled the ‘Success Model and Organs of Consensus-Seeking Consultation. The chapter looks at the success model and organs of consensus-seeking consultation as essential components of improving the functioning of the Alliance, as part of its reconfiguration. 
• The reconfiguration is a deep-going process, rather than an event. It is guided both by the continuously changing conditions and, within this context, the necessity to continuously build, strengthen and reposition the Alliance towards realising its ultimate objectives.   
• In addition to the initial documents, this paper briefly highlights the rationale for building a united, well-functioning, strong and cohesive Alliance. The old established premise that revolutionary organisations are necessary to resolve fundamental societal contradictions and social antagonisms rings true to the effort to reconfigure the Alliance as part of our collective unity and organisational renewal project.
• The Alliance is involved in the national democratic revolution (NDR), our shared strategy of struggle, transformation and democratic transition. The NDR is aimed at destroying the legacy of colonialism, inclusive of colonialism of a special type and apartheid, and replacing it with a society based on democracy and the principles of redress, equality, non-racialism, non-sexism and collective prosperity. The NDR is an anti-imperialist strategy in terms of its content, worldview and goals. The minimum programme of the Alliance is aptly captured in the policy lodestar of the movement, the Freedom Charter, as discussed in the next sections. The Alliance is a practical expression of unity of purpose by its formations, of which all are formations of the Left. Thus the Alliance constitutes a Left pole or an axis of the Left in our national spectrum and its position in the international arena.

CHAPTER 2     

Our Revolutionary Alliance

• The Alliance is a national democratic revolutionary front. The shared characteristics and principles of the formations of our strategic Alliance are unity, non-racialism, non-sexism, democracy, collective leadership and accountability to the movement as well as the people as a whole, and all other principles enshrined in the Freedom Charter, our shared programme. 
• The roots of the Alliance date back to 1928 following the adoption of a resolution on the South African Question by the Communist International (Comintern). The resolution was ratified in South Africa by the Communist Party in 1929, a few months after its first adoption, leading to the establishment and development of our liberation Alliance. As the resolution states, the development in South Africa of capitalist relations of production, imposed from Europe through colonial expansion, ‘led to British imperialism carrying out the economic exploitation of the country with the participation of the White bourgeoisie of South Africa (British and Boer)’. The general colonial character of South Africa was not altered when the Union of South Africa was established, in 1910, since British-controlled capital continued to occupy the principal economic positions in the country (banks, mining and industry), and since the South African bourgeoisie was equally interested in the merciless exploitation of the oppressed majority. In its Strategy and Tactics the ANC refers to this merciless form of exploitation as super-exploitation. 
• Based on the history of South Africa and its internationalism, our liberation Alliance is anti-colonial and anti-imperialist in its nature and character. In our region and continent, the Alliance stands for the African Revolution, towards wider continental independence and progressive integration. Globally, the Alliance stands for a peaceful world order and international justice, economic, political and broadly social. The history, nature and character, aims and objectives, and therefore goals and historical missions of our Alliance formations are detailed in their respective founding documents, constitutions, programmes, strategies and tactics. By way of brief summaries, the Alliance comprises the following independent formations but which need the dependability and therefore support of each other through the Alliance.

African National Congress

• The ANC, the oldest national liberation organisation on the African continent is the formation leading the Alliance, which is at the head of our national liberation movement. The process of consultation that led to the founding of the ANC dates back to between 1908 and 1909 in protest against the Whites-only dialogue that was held towards the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, a decade after the end of the Anglo-Boer War. 
• The ANC was established in 1912 as the South African Native National Congress, with the historical mission of unifying the African people against their exclusion, and for equality before the law, thus liberation of the oppressed. It gained its current name in 1923 and evolved to include Black people in general as well as White democrats. 
• The ANC is also the leader of our society. It has earned its leadership role through decades of struggle, as well as electoral contests as the leading force of the Alliance’s common electoral platform. This leadership position is not leadership by decree. Hence the ANC as well as the Alliance should continuously build and earn its leadership role.    

The Communist Party  

• The oldest Marxist-Leninist formation on the African continent and second oldest political organisation in South Africa after the ANC was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa. The roots of the Party in South Africa date back to the founding in 1914 of the War on War League in opposition to the imperialist First World War and participation in it of South Africa. The War on War League was succeeded by the larger International Socialist League (ISL) in 1915. 
• The Communist Party was subsequently formed by the union of the ISL, the largest component, and other, mostly regional or city-based, Communist and Socialist organisations that existed in South Africa and sought affiliation to the Comintern. The unification was one of the conditions of affiliation to the Comintern, which accepted only one Communist Party per country. The Party gained its current name in 1953 as part of its underground reconstitution in response to its banning in 1950. It was formed with the historical mission of achieving liberation and social emancipation, systematically ending the system of economic exploitation of one person or group by another and ultimately replacing the exploitative system with a socialist revolution.

Congress of South African Trade Unions

• COSATU is a progressive movement that brings together prime mass organisations of the workers in the form of trade unions. To fulfil its purpose, it is as broad as possible and seeks to unite, on an industrial basis as well as in the public sector according to its organisational structure, all workers, at whatever level of their political consciousness, who appreciate the elementary need to come together and defend and advance their conditions of employment.  The federation was formed in 1985 in the context of widespread township uprisings and intense repression unleashed by the apartheid regime. 
• COSATU’s roots date back to the formation of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), its predecessor, in 1955, and before then to the preceding progressive trade union formation processes. SACTU became part of our Alliance and the struggle for liberation and social emancipation. As a class-conscious trade union centre, and taking into account its origins and history, COSATU appreciates that the state as well as its apparatus and therefore state power has serious implications for workers. 
• The federation therefore embraces the necessity to be involved in the broader political struggle. COSATU was accordingly formed with the historical mission to achieve freedom from oppression and economic exploitation. Its objectives include organising unorganised workers and building effective trade unions on a democratic basis, as well as fostering democratic worker leadership in all spheres of society working together with other progressive forces, hence its engagement in the Alliance.

South African National Civics Organisation

• The development of our Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) in the 1980s became one of the important innovations in the history of Alliance reconfiguration, evolution and adaptation to changing operating conditions. The United Democratic Front (UDF) was added to the equation and played an important role towards the final dislodgement of the apartheid regime from power. 
• SANCO was formed in 1992 as part of the MDM. The progressive civic organisation took the form of a unitary formation replacing pre-existing local and regional civics. Some of the civics SANCO replaced emerged in the previous decade of the 1980s as characterised organisationally by the development  of the MDM and the consolidation of the progressive trade union movement. While the UDF was later dissolved, SANCO continued organising and was later recognised as an Alliance formation.

Progressive formations

• The Alliance earned the support of an array of progressive formations in our society. 
• Internally, the leagues of the ANC, namely the ANC Women’s League, ANC Youth League, ANC Veterans’ League, form part of this wider progressive movement. The movement includes the Young Communist League of South Africa, youth wing of the SACP, and COSATU affiliates. The associations of the veterans of the joint ANC and SACP military formation, uMkhonto weSizwe, are also part of the wider progressive movement.   
• The Alliance also earned the support of the progressive student movement, which comprises the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and the South African Student Congress (SASCO). These together with the ANC Youth League and the Young Communist League of South Africa form the core of the organisations constituting the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA).
• The last chapter refers to the Alliance as ‘the sum (total) of its formations’. What the emphasis in this section is placed on is the fact that, as the Alliance Political Council concluded at its plenary session held from 10 to 11 November 2019, the total strength of the support earned by the Alliance as well as its formations in the course of our struggle plus the sum its formations is much greater. This analysis is crucial to an appreciation of our organisational and political tasks both with regard to the reconfiguration of the Alliance, our collective organisational renewal and unity project, and the necessity to continuously build, strengthen and grow its wider support base as inextricably inseparable objectives.  

CHAPTER 3

Shared strategy of struggle and basic programme

• The National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is our strategy to complete the liberation of the formerly oppressed, Africans in particular and Black people in general, and to overcome persisting racialised, gendered and class articulated inequality, as well as uneven development, unemployment, poverty and the associated social consequences. Thus the strategic objective of the NDR is to transform South Africa into a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society. A major achievement of the NDR as a process of struggle for liberation and social emancipation was the dislodgement of the apartheid regime through the 1994 democratic breakthrough. This shared milestone laid the foundation for the transformation of South Africa into a non-racial and non-sexist democratic society in pursuit of collective prosperity based on the Freedom Charter, the basic programme of the NDR adopted by all Alliance formations and other progressive organisations. 
• In the 1950s, with the SACP existing as an underground formation following its banning by the apartheid regime in 1950, the configuration of the Alliance publicly assumed the form of the Congress Alliance, comprising the ANC, SACTU, the South African Indian Congress, the South African Coloured People’s Organisation, later re-named the Coloured People’s Congress, and the Congress of Democrats. Members of the underground SACP were active in all the Congress Alliance formations. The banning of the Party had the effect of deepening the dual membership principle of the Alliance. In terms of the principle, the Party required communist cadres to be active in mass democratic formations, and the ANC as a national liberation organisation that accepts members into its ranks from different ideological persuasions provided they accept its historical mission, aims and objectives. It is the Alliance that co-ordinated the convening of the Congress of the People and preceding processes of consultation, leading to the drafting and adoption of the Freedom Charter by the historic gathering in 1955. 
• The achievement of the goals of the Freedom Charter, which is our minimum programme, lies at the core of the intersection of our historical missions, NDR, and our aspirations. 
• Since the 1994 democratic breakthrough, we have achieved commendable social progress benefitting millions of our people. In this regard a major contribution also came from our enshrinement of human, including workers and socio-economic rights, in our country’s post-1994 Constitution. It is within this framework that, through the ANC-led government involving other formations of the Alliance, we were able to massively extend access to housing, clean drinking water, electricity, social grants and education at all levels, among other programmes. The Alliance formations remain categorical in their unwavering historic support, defence and advancement of the human rights we enshrined in our Constitution following decades of our liberation struggle.   
• Notwithstanding the social progress we have achieved since our 1994 democratic breakthrough, we are still in the midst of many challenges to overcome. Others are old, systemic and reinforcing, while others are new and compounding the old ones. The intercourse between the two categories of challenges and their multiplication increases their enormity on, and negative implications for the Alliance and the NDR. In this regard, state capture and other forms of corruption, bad governance and incompetence are, among others, a serious threat to our movement as whole and the NDR. Combating these deviant tendencies is crucial in defence of the revolution, our democratic transition, and the integrity of our movement as a whole, that is, its legitimacy to lead our national democratic revolutionary programme and democratically earn growing and high support. 
• In essence, it is a key organisational, political and ideological task of the Alliance to foster democratic revolutionary values centred on serving the people selflessly, and to build universal strategic discipline, unity and cohesion based on the shared values. This includes attaching great importance to building and deepening revolutionary moral high ground, binding on our members both within our Alliance as a movement and the state, as well as in society in general. The latter presupposes that, also in their personal conduct, our cadres should carry themselves in a manner that will bring credit and attract support to the movement, rather than repel support or either expose the movement to unfair criticism or attacks.        
• There remains a lot of work to be done towards fulfilling the historical mission of our shared struggle, including securing our national independence and thus safeguarding our policy space, a key instrument of effecting change to achieve the objective aspirations of our people. To this end there are at least three key strategic national tasks arising from the ‘National’(N) in the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) that merit underlining: (i) NATIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION: resolutely safeguarding our democratic national sovereignty; (ii) NATION BUILDING: building the united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society that we seek to achieve, including by fostering social cohesion; (iii) and strengthening our REVOLUTIONARY NATIONALISM, while at the same time deepening our internationalism, our international solidarity and anti-imperialism. 
• In its pursuit of revolutionary nationalism, and of course the NDR, the Alliance stands in contrast to ultraleftism, chauvinism and narrow nationalism. As eloquently captured in the body of our shared theory of struggle, for instance, in the Strategy and Tactics adopted by the ANC in Morogoro, Tanzania, in 1969: 
•  ’’…our nationalism must not be confused with chauvinism or narrow nationalism of a previous epoch. It must not be confused with the classical drive by an elitist group among the oppressed people to gain ascendancy so that they can replace the oppressor in the exploitation of the mass.’’ 
• The Alliance seeks to build a capable national democratic developmental state that serves the people wholeheartedly. The attainment of the goals of the Freedom Charter and completion of the NDR remains firmly rooted in the heart of the shared strategy of the Alliance, in the Alliance as an active expression of our unity of purpose. This is the guiding lodestar of our common policy direction in relation to, but not exclusively, the role of the state in our society and therefore the primary mandate of our public representatives. 
• The NDR is a revolutionary process of transformation to rid our economy and society of colonial and apartheid features, as well as imperialist domination, and to implement democratic economic transformation as well as broader social development towards its full potential. In the present period, the Alliance is striving to move the NDR into a second radical phase and further advance, deepen and defend the revolution towards resolving the primary contradictions of the South African society, as captured in the strategic objectives of the NDR. 
• To that end, the NDR in the here and now has to be a process to transform the dependent-development path of our economy and the chronic under-development that this unresolved colonially created path still reproduces. This process of change is for the right of everyone to work and contribute to nation building, and for the wealth of our country to be shared, as the Freedom Charter declares. 
• Thus meeting the material and social needs of the people is an essential component of the NDR and central to our efforts of fundamental change. This means uplifting the quality of life of all our people, especially the poor, the majority of whom are Africans in particular and Black people in general, female and the youth, and in class terms the working class. In this regard rural areas, townships and peri-urban areas require greater development policy attention.   
• The Alliance will strive to ensure that the above find theoretical and practical expression in the role of the state within the framework of our constitutional democracy. This is based on collective recognition that post-1994 the state has become one of the key pillars of our struggle and transformation to complete the liberation of the formerly oppressed and achieve social emancipation for all South Africans regardless of race, gender and other arbitrary grounds. 
• However, ascendency to the key levers of state power, especially legislative and executive organs, and therefore the exercise of their powers and functions (which has wider implications in relation to other key levers of state power), is subject to the outcomes of the constantly unfolding democratic contestation and regular elections. In this regard the declining support of our ANC-led common Alliance electoral platform between 1994 and 2019 indicates that electoral victories are not necessarily guaranteed. The unity of the Alliance and independently its formations is crucial, and is also the basic condition of electoral victories, but which in turn require the Alliance to forge broader unity of all the motive forces of the NDR and widest possible unity across the length and breadth of our society. 
• Therefore the importance of winning the decisive-to-overwhelming majority of our society to our side and continuously earning their support by democratic means cannot be overemphasised. This requires active involvement of the Alliance in the day-to-day struggles of the people. The Alliance has to reach out with its positions to wider sections of our society and their respective forms of organisation through consistent processes of democratic engagement. This should be destined for laying the basis and building and expanding conditions for a wider partnership towards national unity, in line with our country’s Constitution. 
• The exercise of state power, where ascendency to the respective organs of state has been achieved, is alone not enough. In many respects it still requires to be supported by ongoing and deepening popular mobilisation of all the constituencies of Alliance formations and the motive forces of the NDR. This is crucial towards giving the Freedom Charter’s first clause, ‘The people shall govern’, full play. Moreover, as the Alliance Political Council stated in its post-meeting statement of 13 November 2019, it is essential for the national democratic developmental state that we seek to build, and indeed for the Alliance itself, to mobilise our people in their communities and other areas of transformation and development to act as their own architects of change. This requires an articulation of the structures, programmes and strategies through which the state plays its democratic developmental role to involve direct democratic participation of the people.
• In addition, post-1994 a new reality of engagement in politics through court processes and particular non-governmental organisations also emerged and grew, for better or for worse. A part of this is foreign driven or funded, or both, and is not always underpinned by good faith, while the other part is driven genuinely by real concerns and democratic interests of the people. What is clear is that the Alliance has to organise its presence in all key sites and forms of struggle and significant centres of power. 
• Democratic mobilisation of all sections of our people, with greater attention placed on the overwhelming majority, the working-class, and therefore working-class and popular struggles, are an important determinant in the advance and defence of the NDR. This must, in order to succeed, be guided by clear strategies and tactics, as well as effective organisation, targeted and mass political education and capacity building. NDR hegemony within the state, the economy, our communities, the battle of ideas and, of course, within our organisations, is the critical factor for developing a purposeful, strategically clear, and practically effective NDR.
• In pursuit of non-sexism, the NDR seeks to overcome the vicious impact of patriarchy, not just in some generalised way, but a patriarchy that was sharpened and integrated into the economic base of our country and its social relations of production in general over centuries of colonialism, inclusive of colonialism of a special type (CST) and apartheid. This deep-seated, systemic patriarchy has generated varied forms of social reproduction problems, including the scourge of violence in general and gender-based violence in particular. The Alliance is resolutely determined to bringing an end to the problems, altogether with their root cause, entrenched economic and broader social system patriarchy.
• In our pursuit of non-racialism and a national democratic revolution we will continue to combat racism and the ideology and attitudes of white supremacy. The NDR has the effect of, and is therefore also about emancipating those among White people who harbour, and therefore from the false ideology of racial superiority and the insecurity attached to oppressing others or benefitting from the oppression.
• The process of change requires investment resources. At present not all the investment capital, technologies and technical capacity required are in the hands of the people as whole or the state on their behalf. Neither are they all controlled by South Africans. At the same time, the resources that are in the hands of the state are not sufficient to meet all the goals of our shared project of broader social transformation and economic emancipation. 
• What the above necessarily dictates is the strategic mobilisation of the resources that are neither in the hands of the people as a whole nor in the hands of the state on their behalf for investment, particularly but not exclusively in the productive sector of our economy. This should however be guided by clear objectives, concrete tasks and targets, and meaningful consultation. The objectives, tasks and targets should include a priority on decent work and employment-creating investment; skills transfer; appropriate and sustainable development of the forces of production; the elimination of compradorist, parasitic, corporate-capture of the state and the movement and other corrupt tendencies; and an active contribution to a strategic, high impact industrial policy that overcomes CST sectoral and spatial imbalances. 
• Quite how various strata of capital, Black and White, or, rather, the immense resources controlled by them, get to be mobilised into such an agenda will vary according to circumstances. The measures available in this regard range from enforcing effective strategic discipline, increasing worker democracy on the shop-floor and systematically building worker-control, state-led strategic planning, and state-provided incentives and economic and social infrastructure development, effective state and also popular regulation. Where appropriate public-private participation arrangements based on mutually beneficial outcomes and fair agreements for workers, to straightforward compulsion and even expropriation, to the extent it is necessary, should be considered. All of these require consensus-seeking, meaningful consultation based on the principles of collective leadership and accountability, as it is equally fundamental with regard the overall pursuit of the NDR through state power. 
• The tasks outlined above further require sound strategic and tactical calculations and the pursuit of a developmentally oriented and strategically driven professional cadre in the state, in boards of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as well as other public entities, and in industry. In this regard at least one thing is certain. We will never achieve broad national democratic mobilisation, including of capital that is neither in the hands of the state nor the people as a whole on a mutually-beneficial-outcomes-basis, if, as the liberation movement, we are unclear ourselves as to what the R in the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is all about. One thing it is certainly not about is veering into a path of reformism. What it stands for, as we pronounce it in the full text of the NDR, is REVOLUTION. It therefore remains crucial to maintain the distinction between strategy and tactics; strategic consistency without veering into tactical rigidity; tactical flexibility without losing connection from strategy; and analytical alertness. To this end the goals of the Freedom Charter remain emphatically fundamental!

CHAPTER 4

Success model and organs of consensus-seeking consultation  

• Central to reconfiguration of the Alliance is the necessity to strengthen and deepen its purposeful organisational unity, adapt to the continuously changing conditions and thus move with the times, towards fulfilling the Alliance’s historical mission. This requires consistent evaluation of the changing nature of the operating environment, both domestic and global, and its implications for the organisation and coordination of the Alliance as well as its strategy – the national democratic revolution, basic programme – the Freedom Charter, and the model, levels of operational efficiency and political discipline it needs to successfully carry out its strategic objectives. 
• For that cause, the Alliance recognises that consensus-seeking consultation (premised in the Alliance’s minimum programme) as a standing process, and its associated collective organs have a central role to play. At the heart of this recognition lie the democratic revolutionary principles of unity of purpose – unity not just in words but also in perspective and action, thus principled and programmatic unity, cohesion, collective leadership and accountability. The Alliance will continuously develop, seeking to perfect, and exercise these and other shared revolutionary principles and values, in theory and practices, necessary for the successful implementation and completion of the national democratic revolution. This includes improving the co-ordination, functioning, capacity and impact of its collective leadership organs. 
• In its evolution the Alliance has created a number of consultative organs, and even defined the frequency of their sessions. It was in this process that, at its National Summit held in May 2008, having summed up the experiences of the past period, both positive and negative, the Alliance Political Council was created. This was based on recognition of the continuing strategic relevance of the Alliance and its centrality to the national democratic revolution, thus its primary position, as stated in the declaration of adopted, as the strategic political centre of the revolution. In this regard the Alliance represents the organisational unity of the independent components that constitute it and the intersection of their historical missions in terms of strategic perspective, thus the strategic political centre of their shared strategy in the form of the national democratic revolution and its basic programme, the Freedom Charter. 
• The Alliance is therefore the sum (total) of the unity and strengths of its constituents, which, as independent formations, remain strategic political centres in their own right, based on the underpinnings of their independent existence, in relation to their respective members or affiliates, aims, objectives and goals. The Alliance recognises, however, that there are other key centres of power existing in our society, including the community, the economy (inclusive of the workplace and sectors), and the state, to mention but a few. 
• Common Alliance mechanisms, approaches and platforms in relation to the state, for example, in the post1994 period as a key centre of power in the context of multi-party democracy and related contestation, are necessary in view of principled and programmatic unity as a weapon of victory. The electoral victories since the first in 1994 have added the key levers of the state ascendable through winning elections, and the others associated with subsequent decisions, as the pillars of the implementation of the national democratic revolution. 
• Accordingly, the state has become a pillar of our struggle, to complete the liberation of the formerly oppressed and advance social emancipation of all, and therefore for the implementation of the national democratic revolution. Conversely, electoral losses do have the effect of subtracting from the pillars of the struggle those levers of state power that we lose in electoral battles. While independent, in this and other regards Alliance formations are also interdependent, in a variety of ways. To this end the importance of common Alliance mechanisms, approaches and platforms, as well as joint programmes and campaigns, cannot be overemphasised.        
• The Alliance comprises the following organs at its disposal to function more effectively as the strategic political centre of the national democratic revolution. 
  • Alliance Political Council at the national level as the central leadership of the Alliance, and Alliance Office Bearers Councils at each sub-national level.  
  • Alliance Secretariat at the national level, and at each sub-national level.
  • Alliance Summit at the national level, and respective summits at each sub-national level. 
  • Alliance Bilateral Sessions between Alliance components and the leaders of their respective decision-making organs at all levels.
  • Alliance Deployment and Accountability Commission
  • The class leadership of the working-class as the main, and thus not the sole, motive force of the national democratic revolution, and the organisational leadership of the ANC.
• Existing Alliance declarations, such as the Ekurhuleni I and II Alliance National Summit declarations and the May 2008 National Alliance Summit declaration delved into details in relation to operational aspirations of the Alliance during the corresponding periods. In many ways these declarations remain a key source of reference. A few broad principles regarding minimum standards of operation merit underlining in relation to the way a reconfigured Alliance should function. To that end, the following minimum standards of consensus-seeking consultative processes take into account the fact that each Alliance component has its own key meetings, as part of democratic consultation. To this end practicability is crucial, as big ambitions without regard to it may result in disillusionment about the functioning of the Alliance while the problem their practicability.   

Alliance Political Council

• The Alliance Political Council was established by the May 2008 National Alliance Summit to give practical effect to the recognition of the Alliance as the strategic political centre of the national democratic revolution. This was the first of the steps that were identified as needed, as the declaration states, ‘to be taken to strengthen the capacity of the ANC and the alliance to play this role’. 
• The Alliance Political Council was assigned to ensure that the Alliance engages ‘actively and dynamically with its deployees in government’, both with regard to the implementation of its programmes and ensuring medium-term strategic guidance. The convening of the Alliance Political Council to manage potential or real crises as the main modus operandi is not a characteristic of revolutionary organisation or a reconfigured Alliance. 
• As the standing leadership core of the Alliance, and thus the chief representative of its centrality to the national democratic revolution, the Alliance Political Council needs to meet regularly but according to proper planning, comprising a clearly defined purpose, objectives and expected outcomes. This should include a review of the progress in implementing the national democratic revolution since the last meeting according to its outcomes. 
• The Alliance Political Council should therefore at least hold Quarterly Sessions to guide the implementation of the national democratic revolution and serve as the standing platform for consultation on all major policy questions and considerations. The Alliance Political Council may directly, or indirectly through the Alliance Secretariat, establish any Alliance Working Group on a specific matter or specific aspects and determine its tenure, mode of operation or any necessary conditions for successful work.  
• Established practice has seen the Alliance Political Council play the role of the deployment organ of the Alliance. This is epitomised by the consultative process that was followed before the Cabinet was appointed following the 2019 May general election. This role has to be strengthened. The preceding provisions refer to quarterly evaluation of progress on the implementation of the national democratic revolution. These functions effectively make the Alliance Political Council the Alliance’s custodian of deployment and accountability, including recall. 
• Each Alliance component has internal deployment and accountability mechanisms and/or organs. These should be strengthened and convergence should be built in the form of an Alliance Deployment and Accountability Commission which will perform its work in consultation with the Alliance Secretariat while, as an advisory body, reporting also to the Alliance Political Council. The Deployment and Accountability Commission requires Policy Monitoring and Evaluation capacity, technically and professionally, and therefore training and other necessary equipment to perform its functions. The Alliance Political Council, directly or through the Alliance Secretariat, should ensure that these and other necessary measures required for successful Deployment and Accountability Commission work are put in place.    

 
Alliance Secretariat 

• The Alliance Secretariat is responsible for the co-ordinating functions of the Alliance Political Council and its strategic guidance as well as leadership role, including in relation to the convening of the Alliance Summit. 
• The Alliance Secretariat is, however, also a consensus-seeking consultative organ of the Alliance on day-to-day matters and has the duty to implement all such tasks assigned to it by the Alliance Political Council. 
• The Alliance Secretariat should therefore meet frequently, at least once per month.   

Alliance Summit 

• The Alliance Summit has a key role to play as the ‘parliamentary-wing’ of the motive forces of the national democratic revolution and therefore responsible for its overall direction, including legislative direction and associated policy development. 
• At the national level, at least one Alliance Summit per annum, preceded by thorough preparations, research and performance evaluation under the direction of the Alliance Political Council and coordinating functions of the Alliance Secretariat suffices, provided it is convened based on the basis of proper planning. The Alliance Political Council may convene joint consultative conferences or other Alliance Summits, such as the Alliance Economic Policy Summit and Alliance Governance Summit, if the Alliance deems it necessary, and may similarly also establish any working group and technical task team.
• The Alliance Political Council may extend the Alliance Summit to other progressive formations within the ambit of our broader movement and the necessity to unite the key motive forces of the national democratic revolution. 
• As a matter of principle, and to give play to the widest possible democratic consultation within the Alliance, election manifestos and guidelines should pass through the mechanisms of the Alliance Political Council and Alliance Summit, each in accordance with its role vis-à-vis the centrality of the Alliance to the national democratic revolution.       

Alliance Bilateral Sessions

• Alliance components do convene bilateral sessions from time to time on an as and when necessary basis or as agreed upon in joint planning session. The Alliance encourages this as part and parcel of its consensus-seeking consultative processes. The terms and agenda of the bilateral sessions are agreed upon by the respective Alliance components.  

Class leadership of the working-class as the main motive force of the national democratic revolution and organisational leadership of the ANC

• The Alliance is headed by the ANC organisationally, while the working-class has a class leadership role to play with regard to our project of broader social transformation, an indispensable part of the national democratic revolution. Alliance components are at one with regard to this dialectical articulation of the Alliance and its leadership as well as that of its shared strategy, the national democratic revolution.  
• A conscious effort is required for the ANC and the working-class to play their organisational and class leadership roles, respectively. However, all Alliance components share the responsibility to ensure that the organisational leadership role of the ANC and the class leadership role of the working-class are played to the best of the required standards and objectives of our shared strategy of struggle. 
• Co-ordination of the Alliance is particularly important with regard to the organisational leadership of the ANC. This includes ensuring that electoral processes are Alliance electoral processes, both in form and content, theoretically and practically, led by the ANC, rather than exclusive ANC organisational processes. This requires adherence to both the letter and spirit of consensus-seeking consultation with other
• Alliance components, and in a proper manner within the framework of the Alliance’s collective leadership organs. 
• Thus the architecture of our electoral processes, with elections as a common platform organisationally led by ANC, should be a collective outcome. The makeup of electoral lists should reflect the composition of the Alliance, and this necessarily requires all Alliance components to engage in internal democratic processes and present their determinations for finalisation by the Alliance as led organisationally by the ANC. The manifestos and subsequent policy direction should reflect the content and strategic tasks of the national democratic revolution and also be an outcome of consensus-seeking consultation as well as wider mobilisation of, and therefore consultation with the motive forces of the national democratic revolution.  
• Similarly, leadership to parliamentary, legislative and council representatives should be exercised by the Alliance as led organisationally by the ANC. This collective leadership process requires engagement and consensus-seeking consultation before all major decisions, including voting on major questions within these parliamentary, legislative and council bodies. 
• In a similar manner, the Alliance should foster joint programmes and campaigns, including but not limited to cadre development, community development and policy development campaigns.       

Mutatis mutandis 
29. The minimum principles of effective functioning at the national level of the Alliance shall apply mutatis mutandis at all sub-national levels, with improvements, as a matter of principle, the only variations allowed.