Mpumalanga SACP Provincial Council for stance on the 12th National Congress to be held 11-15 July 2007 in Port Elizabeth
18 June 2007
The SACP Mpumalanga held a Provincial Council on the 17 June 2007 at the Nkanagala District offices in Middle burg, to prepare for a national Congress to be held next month, the 11 to 15 of July 2007 in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape.
We reflected on the road that South Africa has traversed on its road to Socialism. We reflected on the progress made, challenges we have met and context within which all happened in the process of building the working class hegemony. The Provincial Council is of the view that the economic policy of 1996, which produced GEAR was not happening within a vacuum, but within the context of a continuous Capitalist agenda, which is both international in nature driven by Multinationals and also local, as it first played itself through the 1988 delegation of South African Business to Lusaka. We believe that this delegation was not concerned about the National Democratic Revolution, but about the protection of their profits and accumulation, which apartheid was beginning to fail to defend.
We are saying is this Class project that has given birth to this failing economic trajectory that is characterized by what we call "jobless growth", retrenchments, perpetuation of poverty, greed, corruption and individualism. It is this trajectory that has created problems of the state through its IMF - World Bank self imposed structural adjustment that has led to squeezing of state size, which resulted in the weakening of the state capacity to lead Development. It is this Class project that has since attempted to weaken the work place by casualising jobs as part of weakening trade Unionism. It is this Class project that has brought in our society new values of individualism and accumulation that has robbed society of its noble value system of ubuntu and communalism.
We believe that our road to Socialism in South Africa though advancing and deepening a socialist oriented National Democratic Revolution, which is in its nature an uninterrupted programme. We feel that time is now ripe to roll back capitalism.
We are convinced that the struggle of the working class shall finally be victorious and be able to deliver a just caring society in which the will be no exploitation of one by another, a classless society where there will be authentic democracy of communism
The delegates re-iterate their commitment to building a socialist oriented society in South Africa, as such further commit themselves towards building a strong communist that boast both quantity and quality that will allow it to lead and build socialist hegemony within society.
" A party should be strong enough to be able to profile community challenges and programatise them as a way of responding to them." They said in their declaration.
On the party relation to power
We further wish to reiterate our position that the Communist Party is not an NGO, as such it is a party of power, that it should contest state power, even if it means contesting elections on its own, when material conditions permits
Whilst assessing conjunctural situations on whether to contest elections, there should be a pact of the alliance in government.
On the transition and Alliance programme
It is our conviction that the Freedom Charter, is a common programme for a free, democratic South Africa, agreed on by Socialists and non-socialists of which the SACP considers that the achievement of its aims will answer the pressing and immediate needs of the people. This in our view should be a basis of our relation within the ANC and other Alliance partners.
We therefore are calling for, a full implementation of the Freedom Charter, its correct version, being correctly interpreted, for the advancement of the NDR to its logical conclusion.
It is for this reason that we reject the 2 centers of power that may result in the diluting of Government`s focus in the implementation of this common programme of the Alliance. We therefore support the ANC Mpumalanga provincial conference decision that the President of the ANC should be the President of the country.
The Provincial Council condemns the outsourcing of sporting facilities and call for the return of these public asserts back to the people.
On PSL
The delegates also rejected the move by PSL to commodify access to soccer by selling its right to broadcast to super sport, a private company that is going to use it to maximize profit, at the expense of a public Broadcaster, the SABC. This move is going to result in the poor, especially the rural poor paying to access soccer, money they do not have.
We feel that we need to intensify our resolve to work with socialist countries and organizations to build the hegemony of the socialist ideology. As such we should lead solidarity campaigns with those targeted by imperialist regimes.
On leadership
Finally, as we move to our 12th Congress we are going to use the above resolve to match the kind of leaders that we would like to see emerging in the congress. The last five years we have seen a growing, vibrant and a campaigning party.
For the first time since the assassination of Chris Hani in 2003, we have seen a party with growing membership, solid branches, districts and provinces that continually renew. We have seen a party that continuously open vibrant debates, including even those that had been regarded as holly cows.
On the statement by the National Treasurer
As such we reject with contempt the notion by the National Treasurer that suggests that our branches and our provinces, as well as the YCL are just collectives of non-thinking imbeciles and zombies that are manipulated by the Head office. We want to say to him that we are aware of all the programmes that we have engaged upon and some of them have been initiated by us or other provinces, of course others by head Office. These initiatives were all shared in the various Central Committees and adopted as national annual campaigns in the beginning of each year. We therefore, without being respectful, condemn this loose uttering from somebody we have high regard for, like our National Treasurer and a member of Political Buro of the SACP. We question the motives of starting such a discussion right at the tail end of the term, when we are not going to have a chance of discussing this in our structures.
Mpumalanga is ready for the National Congress of the 11 to 15 July 2007.
Issued by SACP Mpumalanga
For information Contact:
Cde Bobakele Majuba
Provincial Secretary of the SACP -Mpumalanga
Contact: 082 885 5940
