By Tmg Digital | Feb 28, 2016 |
The central committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP) has reaffirmed the party`s support for the ANC in the forthcoming local government elections but says it might not be able to support all of its candidates.
Speaking after a meeting at the weekend‚ the committee said that in many localities it would not be able to support ANC candidates "imposed on communities in flagrant disregard of the ANC`s clear rules against branch-membership gate-keeping‚ against slate politics‚ against the use of money to pervert candidate selection".
"We call on the ANC leadership to deal decisively with these abuses so that we ensure an overwhelming ANC-led alliance electoral victory‚" the committee said in a statement.
The SACP added that it fully supported all attempts to ensure free and fair elections‚ but that if a recent ruling by the Constitutional Court meant that voter lists must have regular residential addresses‚ it would result in "the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands if not millions of South Africans living in informal settlements and rural villages‚ including some members of our own Central Committee".
Other ways needed to be found to safeguard against electoral abuses‚ it said.
"We believe that these challenges require the effective revitalisation of the modus operandi of national Alliance leadership structures‚ and the ability to act together on the ground in addressing factionalism. In some cases ANC provincial structures have simply blocked national alliance decisions to hold joint interventions to stabilise areas of conflict‚" the SACP central committee added.