15 June 2007
The SACP has taken note of a discussion paper entitled "Working Class Leadership, Political Power and Hegemony in the NDR: The Role and Responsibility of the SACP" authored by our national treasurer, Mr Phillip Dexter. The paper has been featured in articles appearing in The Times and the Mail and Guardain today. We have also seen a copy of a letter written by cde Dexter to The Times.
The SACP has for some time now been aware of attempts to discredit its credibility, some of its leaders and our programmes especially in the run up to our 12th Congress. This is a repetition of attempts to defocus our 11th Congress. We also saw a similar pattern in the run up to COSATU`s 9th Congress. We also see the leaking of the `Special Browse` as part of this overall offensive against our party and other broader progressive working class formations.
The SACP encourages robust internal debate, and we encourage constructive criticism and self-criticism. We however wish to state that this paper was never formally tabled for either discussion or publication in any of our structures or official publications and instead it appeared in the commercial media.
Whatever the merits or otherwise of some of the broad political views expressed in it, the paper contains some extremely personal and sectarian attacks on other party leaders. In this respect it is doing exactly what the paper piously accuses those it attacks of doing.
Cde Dexter tabled some of these personal and sectarian allegations at a PB meeting of the SACP earlier this year. He retracted all of them at that PB, he apologised and undertook not to repeat this style of behaviour. Cde Dexter`s paper correctly condemns the politics of lamentation, of loose gossip, of ill-founded allegations, and of political analysis that personalises everything. It is a pity that the paper often sinks precisely into these habits itself.
We are appealing to our CC and structures in general not to become overly diverted by views of a single individual at a time when Party structures are involved in intense discussions and workshops on the SACP`s 12th National Congress draft programme, "The South African Road to Socialism". We should be well aware that parts of the media spring these kinds of diversionary assaults on the eve of SACP congresses. This is exactly what happened in the week before the SACP`s 11th Congress in July 2002 - and leading the attack was exactly the same Sunday Times stable.
The matter will be dealt with by the appropriate Party structures and we shall resist diversions by the media.
Issued by the SACP.
For information contact:
Malesela Maleka
SACP Spokesperson
082 226 1802