SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila snubbed the ANC’s January 8 event as tensions between the two alliance partners reach boiling point over the SACP’s decision to contest elections independently. Mapaila also did not attend the ANC’s national general council (NGC) last month. Instead he deployed his first deputy general secretary Madala Masuku to attend both events.
This comes as the SACP, under Mapaila’s leadership, has decided to break ranks and contest elections independently of the ANC-led tripartite alliance for the first since the formation of the alliance. Mapaila has been vocal about his unhappiness with the ANC’s decision to form the government of national unity (GNU) which included the DA, a party he considers the enemy. Mapaila’s absence at the January 8 event came despite ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa urging Mapaila and SACP members during the Joe Slovo event earlier this week to honour their invitation to attend the celebrations.
Ramaphosa, speaking at that event, said though there were clearly tensions between the ANC and the SACP, he was expecting its leadership to attend the January 8 celebrations as the ANC leadership had attended an SACP event. “We must protect the alliance, strengthen it and unite it. And that is why we are pleased that even as we differ, we are still able to get together as we are today.
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We are still able to attend each other’s events,” said Ramaphosa earlier in the week. “And we look forward to the party attending the January 8 celebrations to join the ANC in your great numbers showing your red T-shirts at the ANC celebrations as the ANC has also come here in our great numbers. “Despite the disagreements of the present, our common objective remains the same.
The achievement of a national democratic society.” The ANC has all but failed to convince the SACP to reverse its decision to contest elections as an independent party. Mapaila on Tuesday announced, in front of Ramaphosa, that his party has picked March as its date to hold its local government elections manifesto conference.
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