ANC victory: A decisive mandate to press ahead with the radical second phase of our transition
9 May 2014
On Wednesday May 7th, millions of our people the overwhelming majority of whom are workers and the poor came out in their numbers to cast their votes in our country`s fifth democratic general election.
With over 90 percent of the vote declared, it is clear that the ANC will once more receive a decisive majority. After 20 years in power and in the midst of an ongoing global capitalist crisis that has impacted on our own country, this is a significant achievement for an incumbent governing party. This victory underlines the trust placed in the ANC and its Alliance particularly by the great majority of the workers and the poor. This trust also comes with important responsibilities going forward.
The SACP congratulates the millions of South Africans who voted in the face of many ongoing attempts to sow mistrust and indifference in deepening and consolidating our democracy. The election outcome once more underlines the vast gap between private media-manufactured "public opinion" and real popular opinion in tens of thousands of working class townships, informal settlements and rural villages.
With few exceptions the South African media remains untransformed and sometimes willing propagandist for the opposition. The ANC has emerged with a renewed mandate amidst sustained baseless attacks by the opposition and its other detractors, yet it remained tolerant, humble and was not distracted from its historic mission to build a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa in which there is a better life for all.
The SACP is proud of the important role that Communist activists and volunteers played in ensuring this decisive ANC victory, working together with our Alliance partners and formations of our Mass Democratic Movement. Let our structures therefore not demobilise but instead continue ongoing engagement with the masses in order to ensure a close partnership between our people and government in driving our objectives in the wake of this victory. Ours must always be a people-centred and people-driven developmental programme.
The ANC election victory is an overwhelming mandate to pursue our state-led, inclusive growth and job creation programmes. With this renewed mandate the ANC and its Alliance must now ensure that, in line with the ANC`s Mangaung National Conference resolutions, a radical second phase of our democratic revolution is pursued with greater rigour.
This must build on the many advances we have achieved since 1994 and over the past five years, and include the strengthening of state intervention into the economy to ensure job creation, re-industrialisation, greater beneficiation of our natural resources, a sustained public sector led infrastructure programme, salary and wage policies that ensure greater equality, and land reform that is focused on sustainable livelihoods, and productive activity by those who work the land. The scourge of corruption must be tackled vigorously in line with commitments made in our shared ANC election manifesto.
Above all, together as the Alliance, we must ensure that we foster a better daily working relationship between the state, particularly the local state, and working class communities. This will require better resourcing of these communities, local economic development, and greater levels of participatory democracy and social activism.
Statement issued by the SACP, May 9 2014
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
