23 April 2019
The South African Communist Party (SACP) in Gauteng Province held its Provincial Working Committee (PWC) meeting yesterday on Monday, 22nd April 2019, as part of its weekly election campaign monitoring and oversight. This meeting was extended to include District Secretaries. PWC analysed and assessed its election campaign and resolved to consolidate and improve its election work as follows:
1) Practically translating popular working class support and overwhelming confidence for the ANC leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa to real voter turnout and actual vote for the ANC on the 8th of May 2019. The PWC is firmly convinced that whilst the working class popular support for the ANC under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa is beyond any shadow of doubt, its qualitative consolidation into positive voter-turnout on Election Day remains a formidable task. We are confident that the working class and revolutionary people will triumph to electoral victory on the 8th of May 2019.
2) Intensify mass communication with community based popular platforms of the working class to appeal to the people to be vigilant, courageous, and determined against all odds and difficulties to stand and stay in the long queues until they cast their votes. We are aware that given the high number of voters in our province, and perhaps few voting stations especially in working class areas, long queues often impact voters’ determination and vigilance to withstand the pressure until the actual point of voting. Our assessment is that due to low population in suburbs, voters are not exposed to this problem compared to townships, informal settlements, and working class residential areas. Post the elections, we will engage IEC on this matter.
3) Pay special attention to Sedibeng and the entire area of the Vaal. We have identified this part of the province as the weakest link in this election campaign due to the interface of the glaring objective and shocking subjective contradictions.
4) Mobilise the Red Brigade as our campaigning machinery to voting stations to provide practical support and directly motivate voters to go the polls, conduct final blitz and door-to-door from 10h00 in the morning and after every three hours whilst respecting the IEC rules around voting stations. We agreed to avoid late hour panic and rush especially when we experience low poor voter-turnout as it happened in 2016 Local Government Elections.
5) Work closely with Cosatu to ensure a successful May Day event in our province. We remain firmly convinced that the leading role of Cosatu in key economic sectors in production, distribution and exchange will certainly and definitely provide the necessary direction, clarity and leadership to all the motive forces of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and historically oppressed people.
6) Ensure that our Provincial Gender Commission works closely with the ANC Women’s League to focus our final push on the mobilisation of women. We are encouraged by the positive response of women to the election campaign, and that women constitute the highest number of voters in our province.
7) Work with the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) to mobilise and consolidate the youth vote on the overwhelming and popular working class vote of the people on the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa and that the youth will not break ranks and isolate themselves from the historically oppressed and revolutionary people. We are confident that our youth fully understands and comprehend the only truth, that their future is a dialectical package of the revolutionary past, the exciting present, connecting to the better future. We are encouraged that our current generation of youth will continue to reject the abstract and misleading notion of a future without its past simply because such a future does not exist. We are further encouraged that our youth is advanced and cultured to separate fiction from fact, lies from the single truth.
The PWC reaffirmed its well pronounced view that on the one hand, the post-Nasrec Conference period has definitely and certainly turned the corner, thus unleashing a wave of spontaneous, popular and overwhelming support for the ANC under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa. On the other hand, exists an indisputable reality and single truth that the right-wing opposition parties have decayed and are fragmented, disoriented, confused and extremely weak when compared to 2016 local government.
We are confident that the ANC will improve its voter performance and increase its percentage on the 8th of May 2019 compared to 2014 National and Provincial Elections.
We call on the working class to rise, stand-up and be vigilant on the 8th of May 2019, and push back the historic enemy and forces of counter-revolution to the dust-bin of history.
Issued by the SACP Gauteng Province
Contact:
Jacob Mamabolo – SACP Gauteng Provincial Secretary
Mobile: 082 884 1868
