WELL DONE SOUTH AFRICA!
SACP Political Bureau Statement
The Political Bureau of the SACP held its scheduled monthly meeting in Johannesburg yesterday, June 28th.
The meeting of the PB afforded the leadership of the SACP with an opportunity to evaluate the ongoing organisational and campaigning work of the SACP since our special national congress in December last year, and to discuss progress within our ANC-led alliance following a series of Alliance Political Council meetings as well as bilaterals. Also on the agenda of the PB was a "half-time" evaluation of SA's hosting of the soccer World Cup.
At a time when many other political formations are in decline and are showing serious signs of factional degeneration, the SACP's unity and membership continues to grow significantly. Current membership stands at over 105,000, making us by far the second-largest political party in SA, after our ally the ANC. Our membership growth is directly linked to our community-based activism and a range of campaigns spearheaded by the Party. Our current campaign against corruption has clearly struck a powerful chord amongst a wide-range of South Africans. Together with a wide range of forces we will be intensifying this campaign in the coming months by focusing on the blockages to service delivery to poor communities - many of these blockages are directly related to "tenderpreneurship" and other corrupting practices.
Contrary to an impression sometimes created in the media, Alliance unity, particularly at the national level, has generally been considerably consolidated over the past two and a half years. Alliance unity is not about a shallow feel-good sentimentality, but about principled activism around a shared strategic programme. Over the past year the SACP has consistently distinguished between the great majority of ANC leaders, members and supporters, on the one hand, and a small group of wreckers who do not want to see ANC, still less Alliance-wide unity consolidated. The SACP believes that the narrow sectarian agenda of this small group has increasingly been exposed, as they have become more desperate and brazen. Their exposure and marginalisation bodes well for consolidating unity across our movement, and, indeed, for building the widest, patriotic, nation-building effort within our country.