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10 JULY 2017 - 16:01 NATASHA MARRIAN AND GENEVIEVE QUINTAL
Jeremy Cronin. Picture: TREVOR SAMSON
Deputy general secretary of the SACP Jeremy Cronin will not be availing himself for re-election at the party's national congress, which gets under way in Boksburg on Tuesday.
This leaves the party's succession battle wide open, and may lead to a call for its general secretary, Blade Nzimande, to step aside.
"As a communist party we are very proud to say … we are easily the most unified and most stable of the [alliance] formations," Cronin told journalists at a media briefing on Monday.
He confirmed that he would not be standing for his post during the congress, in order to balance "stability", "continuation" and "renewal".
Cronin would be standing down after 22 years in his post at the helm of the party. "There is not going to be a mechanical return [to leadership posts]."
Second deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila said the party's other allies, the ANC and Cosatu, faced debilitating battles over leadership, but that the SACP was seeking to avert those battles.
Mapaila defended incumbent general secretary Blade Nzimande, saying he remained young and would continue to lead. He said he would not compete with Nzimande for the post.
