ANC and DA had secret talks on forming a coalition ahead of elections, SACP says
The South African Communist Party (SAPC) has accused the ANC of holding secret talks with the Democratic Alliance (DA) in March about forming a coalition government well before 29 May general elections.
“These things were dealt with in secret, they were premeditated, as early as March, we knew that secret talks were going on with the DA,” SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila told delegates at a Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) meeting on Tuesday.
“We raised the concerns of why are you in secret talks while we are in the middle of a campaign.”
Mapaila spoke to comments made by DA federal chair Helen Zille, who said in an address to the South African Chamber of Commerce UK in London last week that most of the local business community “really wanted us to do one thing, and that is to prop up Cyril Ramaphosa and protect him” from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe party.
The SACP has accused Ramaphosa and other pro-business people in the ANC of rushing to form a government of national unity (GNU) with the DA to win the approval of big business.
On Tuesday, Mapaila noted that the ANC had lost massive support in the 29 May elections, losing its outright majority for the first time since the first democratic vote in 1994.
“But within a short space of time, we suffered another major blow with the current ANC choice to form a coalition with the right-wing neoliberal anti-national democratic revolution, anti-people organisation and a reactionary force, the DA,” he said.
Mapaila said Ramaphosa had used the guise of inviting other parties for talks on a national unity government to mollify those within the ANC opposed to working with the DA.
“They hide this arrangement with the DA in the name of GNU. Helen Zille affirmed this question, not any other but the main partner of the ANC. She says this thing of the GNU is a side step and the real issue is that there’s a coalition between the ANC and the DA.”
Mapaila said the DA represented the “continuation of a counter-revolution agenda in our movement”.
“We have said the ANC must never want to colonise our country through the back door, we will never accept any colonisation in whatever form it takes,” he told delegates to the Popcru meeting.
“You hear ANC leaders trying to justify that they consulted us, it is an insult for them to say that to us and we are forced to say this to our membership because they keep lying in public that they consulted the audience. We were never consulted on this matter. They mustn’t lie about this thing, it is unfair.
“We have to take out the glove and hit hard because our revolution is being sold out while we watch, we won’t allow that as the community party.”
The ANC has accused Mapaila of inappropriately speaking publicly about internal issues which he should raise within the relevant structures of the alliance.
“Five ANC officials attacked me, including the president, deputy president, secretary general, deputy secretary general, and the national chair, for saying we disagree with the GNU,” he said on Tuesday.
He said Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi should be “protected” from the fallout of the decision by the ANC in the province to leave the DA out of the government of provincial unity.
“It is clear that we must protect Panyaza [Lesufi] and we must also say to the DA hands off Panyaza even to this collaboration of elements in the ANC, hands off Panyaza because what business does Helen Zille have to do with the ANC affairs?” Mapaila said.
“They now think they are in charge and in control, they are even telling ANC leaders what to do.”
Popcru’s president Thulani Ngwenya said the national unity government was like a forced marriage that no one wants, where the husband and wife are constantly at odds, saying the parties involved were simply too different to co-operate effectively.