Cape Town – The South African Communist Party’s (SACP) Solly Mapaila on Saturday morning praised former Deputy Higher Education Minister Mduduzi Manana for resigning from Cabinet, adding that President Jacob Zuma should be next to quit.
Mapaila, the party’s first deputy general secretary and an outspoken critic of Zuma, delivered the keynote address at the SACP Western Cape’s 96th anniversary celebrations in Khayelitsha.
President Zuma on Saturday said that he had accepted Manana’s resignation, which came just under two weeks after he assaulted two women at a nightclub in Johannesburg.
“We want to say thank you very much to comrade Mduduzi Manana for setting such a great example,” said Mapaila, speaking to an audience of roughly 400 at the Matthew Goniwe High School in Site B, Khayelitsha.
“We want to thank him for taking this courageous step to stand aside (so that) he doesn’t contaminate the important office he occupies on behalf of our people.
“How we wish the one who accepted his resignation, President Zuma, could do the same.”
Mapaila returned to the theme of “contaminants” again, saying one of the SACP’s main tasks was to remove Zuma from office.
“We are worried comrades, that if things go as they are, we may not win the 2019 elections.”
Mapaila said that, under Zuma’s leadership, the SACP had been excluded from high-level decision making within the ANC-led tripartite alliance.
He said that the SACP and Cosatu were not “junior” partners in the alliance, but “equal partners”.
“The ANC is doing things as if the alliance does not exist,” he said. “There is a growing arrogance from within the ANC, to think and behave as if the ANC is the whole alliance. That is a mistaken view.”
To show how the SACP input had allegedly been dismissed, Mapaila gave the example of a media statement put out by ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa on Wednesday.
In the statement, Kodwa said that the ANC had “consistently created platforms for robust engagement” with its alliance partners before deciding whether to institute disciplinary action against ANC MPs who publicly declared they voted for the motion of no confidence against Zuma on August 8.
Zuma survived the motion by 198 votes to 177 with 9 abstentions. The vote was secret.
“Each party has had ample opportunity to present their viewpoints and seek to influence one another in our thinking,” said Kodwa.
But on Saturday Mapaila said the SACP’s views regarding disciplinary action had not been sought.
“They alleged that we discussed exhaustively between the alliance and expressed our views,” he said.
“This is not true, the statement that the ANC issued during the week about us is incorrect. They must go and rectify this.
“We are still waiting to engage with the leadership of the ANC in this regard.”
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