Thursday.
The greatest threat to the success of Cyril Ramaphosa’s government of national unity appears — as predicted — to be from his comrades, rather than from the parties who contested the ANC going into the general elections.
More shots have been fired in the ongoing sniping taking place between the ANC and its alliance partners over who it turned to in order to remain the governing party after it lost its majority nationally on 29 May.
Bullets are flying — verbally speaking — along with insults, lawyers’ letters and invites to explain utterances as the members of the tripartite alliance deal with the process of adjusting to life below 50%+1.
It was always going to be tough.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) says the ANC has ignored it during the process of constituting a government — or at least its leaders who didn’t make it into cabinet alongside John Steenhuisen and Pieter Groenewald do.
John Deere and Oom Piet have been too busy doing their jobs to pose any threat to the stability of Ramaphosa’s government — no surprises there — with the boat-rocking now being left up to Ramaphosa’s comrades.
The ANC’s imaginary friend — electorally speaking — is feeling left out (Blade Nzimande excluded) and believes that Ramaphosa should have reached out to the parties who broke away from it instead of those to its right (allegedly) to stay in the governing game.
SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila kicked things off with an address to a National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) gathering earlier this month in which he said the ANC failed to consult it when deciding who to partner with in the unity government.
Mapaila said he had attempted to convince the ANC to work with the Red Berets — and vice versa — instead of opening the door to the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Freedom Front Plus (FF+).
Comrade Solly believes that the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party is less of a threat to the ANC than the DA and the FF+ are, despite the fact that it was Jacob Zuma — and not John and Oom Pieter — who took away its ability to govern solo.
Perhaps the comrade was too busy re-reading Das Kapital to have noticed the election result — and has conveniently forgotten what took place in our fair Republic back in November 2005.
That was the first time the SACP failed the test when asked the fundamental — make that existential — question: is our flag red or JZ?,
by its then national deputy secretary, Mazibuko Jara.
Zuma had just been indicted for corruption for the bribes he collected from Schabir Shaik and arms dealer Thint and was trying to turn his arrest into a presidential campaign by using the SACP and labour federation Cosatu.
Jara posed the question in an internal discussion document in response to a move by the SACP leadership to back Zuma and put him in the presidency — and keep him out of prison — in return for the promise of a shift to the left by the government.
It turned out that the only red flags involved were the ones being raised by Jara — he opposed backing Zuma, whom he characterised as a criminal and counter-revolutionary — and the SACP backed Nxamalala to the hilt.
Mazibuko was hounded out of the SACP, Zuma took over the ANC — and the country — and the rest of us are still paying the price of their inability to read the political room today.
The promised political power never materialised either.
Zuma appointed Nzimande and a few of his drinking partners to the cabinet, but it was the Gupta brothers who ended up telling uBaba who to appoint — or fire.
All hammer, no sickle.
Nearly 20 years and a halfway failed state later, Solly’s banging the same old JZ drum, talking up the old man as an ally rather than the threat that he has again proved himself to be.
Some people don’t — or won’t — learn.
The SACP has lost most of the influence it had on the ANC — and society — since Jara first posed the question.
Today, the SACP is more car guard than revolutionary vanguard, mainly as a result of its involvement with Zuma — and the quest for a shortcut to political power.
Comrade Solly would be well advised to read Jara’s discussion document again — the Zumarites in the SACP couldn’t burn the online copies — before suggesting that the ANC get cosy with the former president it just expelled.
Perhaps Solly should read the report of the Zondo commission into state capture too, before venturing any further along the path he is proposing that the ANC should follow again.
Perhaps.
