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Blade Nzimande (Photo: SACP via Twitter)
- SACP warns that it is false that elements within the movement that presided over the cuts in college and university appropriations come out claiming otherwise.
- He also warned against “factionalists” who claim to have information about the killing of stalwart Chris Hani without presenting this to law enforcement authorities.
- The SACP said it supports the state’s capture investigation work.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) has warned against ANC leaders joining student protests in favor of free education when the party has taken a somewhat more complex political position on college fees.
Without mentioning names, the party was likely referring to ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule and spokesperson for uMkhonto we Sizwe military veterans Carl Niehaus who joined a march of students demanding free education in Johannesburg in early this month.
In a statement Sunday after a weekend meeting of its central committee, the SACP said it was “false that elements within our movement that presided over cuts to college and university appropriations came out claiming otherwise.”
The part of the statement that deals with education was read by the party’s first undersecretary, Solly Mapaila, in which the party said that the ANC was the only formation that supported the austere budget presented by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni in Parliament last month.
Mapaila said:
It is hypocritical for any ANC leader to publicly display himself as a stalwart of free education at a stroke. The SACP cautions elements within our broader movement not to use genuine educational struggles to pursue the conduct and agendas of factions in our movement and society.
Mapaila said the ANC has a responsibility to publicly support its own policies and political positions, “rather than allowing some within its leadership ranks to engage in opportunistic and populist positions that go against ANC policies.”
He said the meeting reaffirmed SACP’s stance on “free and compulsory basic education,” as well as access to technical, vocational and higher education and training for the poor and the working class.
Mapaila said the meeting welcomed the steps taken by the Department of Higher Education, Science and Technology to shift the priority of funds towards the National Student Financial Aid Plan “to ensure that no deserving student is excluded.”
The statement also called on the government to provide adequate resources to public universities and colleges.
Most of the statement was read by Party Secretary General Blade Nzimande, who is also Minister of Higher Education.
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Nzimande said the party wanted to warn “the factionalists who call themselves members of the so-called ‘Radical Economic Transformation’ (RET) [grouping]”They were using the name of fighting stalwart Chris Hani to create divisions in the ANC.
He said those people claimed they had more information about his murder without presenting this to law enforcement authorities.
Nzimande also said the party reaffirmed its “commitment to the supremacy of our democratically adopted Constitution, the primacy of the rule of law,” and said it supported the work of the state’s capture investigation.
He said the party condemned the “post-Polokwane New Tendency regrouping” that was now coalescing around attacking the state capture investigation.
The party said:
The elements behind this maneuver now seem destined for a counterrevolutionary offensive against some of the institutions of our democracy. These elements are deliberately intensifying divisions in our broader movement and wreaking havoc in society, to try to prevent the law from taking its course.
Nzimande also said the party supported the revival of the Defend Our Democracy campaign last week, which is a group of civil society organizations and leaders calling for law enforcement agencies to have the space to do their work.
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