The ANC admits that ‘something is bound to give” if tensions between it and the South African Communist Party are not defused.
The internal report in which the party raises this alarm has surfaced at the same time as the alliance partners have closed ranks and smothered public venting after some ANC delegates were booed at the communists’ special congress in December.
Prepared by national executive committee member and Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, the report warns that optimistic public posturing should not distract the party from resolving inter-party problems honestly.
The Mail & Guardian is in possession of the document, which has now caused public bickering after Sexwale said some in the party were trying to disown it.
‘While our public standpoint is a correct one, to close ranks, the truth is that we should not do so only to paper over the cracks of differences,” Sexwale’s report says. It urges the ANC to address its differences with its allies and within the party itself through the ‘crucible” of debates.
The booing incident could have been resolved amicably, the report says, but became ‘distracting and destructive” because of ‘rapidly escalating levels of inter- and intra-alliance political tensions, hostility, mistrust, mutual suspicion, disinformation campaigns, public slander and other ills that have come to characterise our day-to-day political existence”.
The ANC downplayed Sexwale’s report this week, saying the national working committee needs to process it with other reports from all ANC delegates to the SACP conference.
Sexwale is perceived to be on the side of those who want ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe to be removed at the next congress in 2012. The M&G understands that reports from other delegates are expected to ’neutralise” his document.
Aggrieved comrades
Sexwale expressed his willingness to run for the ANC presidency in 2007, a few months before the Polokwane conference, but later withdrew to support Jacob Zuma. He is therefore seen by some as still preparing to stand for ANC presidency.
A public argument ensued this week in the form of statements sent from the offices of Sexwale and ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe about the validity of Sexwale’s report.
‘Any suggestion that the report has ‘no status’ in the ANC is both false and dubious — in fact, it would be mischievous to attempt to disown this report,” said Sexwale in a media statement.
In the report Sexwale says he had a discussion with Mantashe and ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe before compiling the report.
Mantashe and SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande receive severe criticism in the report for offering, after the heckling of ANC delegates at the SACP congress, an intervention that was ‘advisory” rather than ‘condemning”.
‘It would not be far-fetched to describe their intervention as less than equal to the situation, clearly leaving the targeted comrades still feeling aggrieved,” Sexwale’s report reads.
He warns that divisions within the ANC’s lower structures could explode if the party continues to downplay the seriousness of internal battles. While it was a blessing that none of the speakers at the ANC’s recent 98th birthday celebrations were booed, ‘sooner or later, in this unhappy atmosphere, something is bound to give”, Sexwale writes.
‘How long should the people endure a situation where day in and day out national discourse is dominated by tripartite alliance bickering, back-biting and butchering of individual reputations?” his report asks.
The ANC’s national working committee will discuss Sexwale’s report with others from ANC delegates to the SACP conference and table a combined report to the NEC before the party meets the communist party to iron out the differences.
‘Nothing wrong with Mantashe’s two hats’
Veteran South African Communist Party leader and ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Thenjiwe Mtintso has joined the battle over communist influence in the ANC by stoutly defending the ruling party’s secretary general, Gwede Mantashe.
Justifying Mantashe’s ‘two hats” — he is also SACP chairperson — Mtintso said there is nothing wrong with holding senior positions in the ANC and the SACP simultaneously.
Mtintso, South Africa’s ambassador in Rome, was formerly the ANC’s deputy secretary general while an SACP central committee member.
Interviewed this week, she said leaders should use the language of the party they are representing when they speak.
‘When I’m in the ANC I report to the ANC; when I get to the SACP I analyse what was discussed without being the informer,” she said.
Mantashe has come under heavy fire over his two positions, with ANC Youth League president Julius Malema leading the charge.
Mtintso asked why there were no perceived contradictions when Joe Slovo, former SACP general secretary, served on the ANC NEC and became housing minister.
‘When he built houses did he build communist houses? No. He was working and speaking as an ANC minister.”
She said: ‘Why do people question whether you’re speaking as an ANC or SACP leader when we’re one?”
Tensions between Malema and Mantashe were exacerbated by the heckling of members of an ANC delegation that included the youth leader at the recent SACP congress in Polokwane.
Malema insisted that he spoke to Mantashe as ANC secretary general when voicing his unhappiness, despite Mantashe attending the event as an SACP delegate. The youth leader then walked out.
Mtintso said she had rebuked communist delegates at the party’s 10th congress in 1998 when they sang anti-Gear (growth, employment and redistribution strategy) songs as former president Nelson Mandela arrived to address the conference.
She had defended Mandela against humiliation by communist delegates who wanted to debate the policy in his presence.
‘I decided that I should be the one to articulate the views of the communist party on Gear. I was chairing that session, I was not representing the ANC.”
She had told Mandela that the SACP might not recognise the part of his speech that warned alliance partners against public attacks on the ANC over Gear.
The ANC NEC later discussed whether Mtintso should have articulated the views of the communist party while holding the position of ANC deputy secretary general. Despite this, said Mtintso, the alliance continued to function normally.
‘The truth is that we do not want capitalists, but we stay with them because they are part of the struggle.”
However, Mtintso acknowledged that it was sometimes hard to satisfy both sides while holding two positions.
She supported Mantashe’s decision to deny Malema an opportunity to address the SACP congress.
‘Some think he should have allowed Malema to talk, some of us think that he should not have allowed him to talk. I think he [Mantashe] managed it well.”
Mtintso said it was the fight for state resources that was behind the ‘artificial” two-hats debate.
‘When you compete you want to find any stone that you can throw at the next person.”
The debate died down outside election and congress times, but came up during ‘the internal distributing of positions”.