13 April 2004
The South African Communist Party (SACP) wishes to take this opportunity to wish all our people a peaceful election day on 14 April 2004. We again wish to reiterate our call to all the workers, the poor, women and youth of our country to come out in their millions to vote for the only party that is best capable of taking forward their interests, the African National Congress.
As the SACP we are concerned that some of the employers want to prevent their workers to go out and vote. We are particularly outraged by the behaviour of some of the farmers to try and prevent farmworkers from going out to vote. We wish to particularly condemn in the strongest possible terms what appears to be an attempt by Waterglen Poultry farm, in North West, to prevent farmworkers from exercising their democratic right, by threatening those workers with dismissal if they go out to vote on April 14.
We wish to strongly warn those employers who prevent or dismiss their workers for going to vote that as the SACP we shall expose them and embark on targetted mass action against them. No employer or any other capitalist has the right to take away the hard won rights of the overwhelming majority of South African workers to exercise their vote. We shall not allow capitalists to steal the victory of the mass of the working people by denying them their right to go and vote for a party of their choice.
Thousands of our people and workers laid down their lives in order to win the right to vote and democratic South Africa. We therefore call upon all employers to ensure that workers are given adequate time to go and vote.
We also wish to use this opportunity to call upon all the workers and the poor of our country to ignore the opportunistic call by the extreme left for our people to boycott the elections. These extreme left forces are mainly led by people who were never part of the liberation struggle, with no vision for the future and therefore do not understand the importance of votes for all in our country. Our people shall never be fooled by peace-time revolutionaries, who ran away during the difficult days of the struggle against apartheid.
As the SACP, through our own campaign to support the ANC in these elections, we remain confident that our people will come out in their millions to cast their vote. We are also confident that an overwhelming majority will cast their vote to return the ANC to government, and ensure that the ANC also secure a majority vote in both KZN and the Western Cape. We are also confident that these third democratic elections will be peaceful, and will mark another landmark in the ongoing struggle to consolidate our democracy.
CONTACT
Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara (surname Jara)
Head of the Office of the General Secretary
South African Communist Party
Tel - + 27 11 339 3621,
Fax - +27 11 339 4244/6880
Cell - +83 651 0271
Email - mazibuko@sacp.org.za