Alliance split 'would hurt SA'

2006-06-27 21:00

Cape Town - A split in the African National Congress's tripartite alliance would "seriously" damage South Africa at this point, warned SA Communist Party deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin on Tuesday.

"I think fragmentation of the alliance and contesting elections independently... wouldn't be good for South Africa," Cronin told Cape Town Press Club.

"I think we're still a society that is potentially very fragmented (and) there are serious dangers of alienation and marginalisation."

Cronin said calls for the party to "go it alone" and split from the ANC and the Congress of SA Trade Unions alliance, of which it is the third party, were linked to dissatisfaction and irritation with the ANC.

This was also why many communists, and particularly young ones, were supporting former deputy president Jacob Zuma.

Cronin said there was growing class inequality in South Africa.

'Sea of grievance'

"Significant numbers of people have benefited... from new (post-1994) realities, but large numbers of people have benefited marginally, if at all, and many find themselves in worse predicaments, (with) HIV/Aids, unemployment and so on."

South Africans needed to try and understand this "sea of grievance", and why it had attracted, around Zuma, a "populist and... demagogic mobilisation".

What was needed was a decent set of policies and programmes to address the grievances.

Talk of a split was linked to a "general climate of irritation that is prevailing, which links also to the Zuma mobilisation".

Political system 'could splinter'

"I think this 'we're going to go it alone' is linked to that irritation with the ANC. Some of the irritation is completely legitimate, in my view, but I think it's grasping at the wrong resolutions.

"The right resolutions are to... contest the direction of the ANC; to be critical of things that are wrong; to be supportive of things that are good; and, to try to maintain the broad comradely unity of the ANC and not to factionalise it around presidential candidates, or around elections, or whatever.

"I don't think (the SACP) will do particularly well out of contesting elections on its own, and I think that South Africa will be damaged seriously if our political system splinters and fragments.

Cronin said the SACP supported Zuma as did the African National Congress.

"Our formal position is that he's a leader of the ANC, he's a former member of the SACP - he left in 1990 - and, obviously, he's in a serious predicament and, obviously, we don't abandon individuals.

'A profound problem'

"But... we're not supporting him as a candidate for presidency. We're deeply concerned about some of the things that have been said by him, or by his supporters and so forth.

"But, it's no secret that many communists, and particularly lots of young communists, are supporting Zuma.

Not just in some broad, general humane kind of way, but politically and presidentially. I think it's wrong.

"But I think that what accounts for it is a climate of grievance and irritation, which I think is quite a profound problem in our society."

Cronin said the SACP had examined a variety of scenarios at its last congress related to how it could fight elections under its own banner, but there was no talk of breaking the alliance.

Foolhardy to go it alone

These scenarios would be the focus of debate at the party's next congress, at the end of next year, at which point "some sort of decision" would be made.

"My view is I think this would be foolhardy, for many reasons... to think that you can do this (contest elections independently) and somehow preserve a warm and friendly alliance... it is Utopian.

"The problem is our core constituencies are exactly the same," said Cronin.

- SAPA