WORKERS AND SOCIALIST PARTY FOUNDED BY DSM AND MINEWORKERS!
An event marking what has the potential to change the political landscape of South Africa, like Marikana has done on the industrial plane, quietly took place this week-end with the founding of a new political party, the Workers and Socialist Party (WASP).
The Democratic Socialist Movement, affiliate of the Committee for a Workers International and representatives of strike committees of Bokoni Platinum in Limpopo, Royal Bafokeng and Murray and Roberts in Rustenburg, North West and KDC in Carltonville, Gauteng founded the party.
This took place despite seemingly unrelated but more than likely to be deliberate acts of sabotage in the form of the withdrawal of the permission by police hours after it was granted to hold the rally at a stadium in Limpopo, the draconian bail conditions of leaders of the Bokoni Platinum strike committee and the shunning of the event by the media.
In spite of suffering these setbacks in planning what was meant to be a rally and media conference to announce the intention to launch the party and to celebrate the release on bail of key leaders of the Bokoni Platinum Strike Committee, the representatives who could arrived after the rally was called off, were undeterred and determined to proceed with what had to be pared down to a founding meeting of the Workers and Socialist Party.
What especially lifted the spirit of those gathered was the reading out of some of the messages of support from Harmony Gold, Anglo Gold Ashanti and sister organisations of the DSM in Nigeria, Venezuela, China and others including of the sole member of the Irish Socialist Party in the European Parliament, Paul Murphy.
The founding of WASP takes place at the same time as news of the suppression of a report by the Cosatu leadership has come to light confirming the opposition of shopstewards to the leadership's support for Zuma, rejection of the SACP and support for a workers' party. The founding of WASP confirmed the irrelevance of the conference at Mangaung where a party, riddled with corruption and torn apart by a factional war for access to state power and self- enrichment opportunities was deciding which capitalist candidate will lead it. Whereas the ANC is dedicated to the preservation of capitalism and the continued enslavement of the working class, WASP aims to abolish capitalism.
The need for a Workers and Socialist party was clearly evident in the reports given by strike committee leaders of the situation that exists at various mines around the country after their return to work. At Bokoni Platinum a virtual state of emergency has been imposed and workers in the surrounding villages found not to be at work are frog marched to report for duty at the mine. At Harmony Gold, workers have resumed strike action and elsewhere discontent is simmering just below the surface as many of the demands for which workers came out on strike as far back as August remain unresolved and unmet notwithstanding the considerable cost in lost income and the incalculable cost in the lives sacrificed on the koppies of Marikana.
The modest founding of the Workers and Socialist Part with just 20 delegates present has made concrete the idea of an alternative based on a socialist programme committed to nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy of which the mining industry remains a key component. The WASP will have to put as one of its key demands the nationalisation of the mines under the direct ownership, management and control of workers in the process leading to the socialist transformation of society, the only basis on which a lasting solution to the problems of mine workers and the working class as a whole can be found. The historic first step in the process towards the launch of what until this time has been referred to as a mass workers party will build the strike committees as the first battalion in the struggle to unite workers in the mines, factories and farms, communities and students into a formidable force that will tie the historical knot between the events at Marikana and those at Sharpeville on 21st March 2013.
The WASP will have to distinguish itself from all other political parties by its clearly socialist programme, its approach to electoral politics as but one terrain of struggle and by its public representatives being subject to the right of immediate recall and to the average wage of skilled worker.
In the coming days and months leading to its launch the WASP will mobilise support for the party with a resolution calling for the building of the party to popularise the idea of an alternative in organised formations such as unions, community organisations, social movements and like-minded political organisations who will be invited to adopt the resolution spelling out its key principles and framework of its programme as part of their formal affiliation to the WASP. The WASP will be fighting party that will unite service delivery protests, student struggles against unaffordable tuition fees and workplace struggles against short time, retrenchments and labour broking as the bosses try to make us pay for the crisis of their system in SA and worldwide.
WASP militants will fan out across the country to amass a million signatures in preparation for contesting the 2014 elections. WASP will also lead a campaign for the recall of all incompetent and corrupt councillors to replace them with WASP representatives - workers representatives on a workers wage. WASP will put its full weight behind campaigns against corruption and e-tolling. A series of regional rallies to report on the adoption of the resolution to build the party will culminate in its launch on Sharpeville Day as part of the strategy to register what will be unapologetically a Workers and Socialist Party.
Statement issued by the DSM Executive Committee, December 18 2012
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