The regional ANC is accused of not honouring Alliance unity.
Firebrand Mpumalanga SACP leader Bonakele Majuba has a strong message for the eHlanzeni ANC leadership.
“We are watching you,” Majuba warned.
“Currently in the province we are having a smooth Alliance and it didn’t come easy, we had to fight for it. But there is a problem in that district (eHlanzeni),” Majuba said while on stage.
He was welcoming the scores who had come to celebrate the SACP’s 97th birthday at the Siyathuthuka hall in eMakhazeni on Sunday.
Majuba said the leadership of former provincial leader DD Mabuza, who became the ANC’s deputy president on 18 December 2017, tried to sideline the Alliance but they had to fight and “now the Alliance in the province is smooth”.
“The one who is going to take over [from Mabuza] after the PGC if he forgets that in the province there are communists that person will have a difficult time for the rest of his term in office,” Majuba said to thunderous applause.
“Just ask the previous group they will tell you,” he said.
The communist party celebrated 97 years of birth over the weekend in Mpumalanga, inviting Central Committee member Buti Manamela to come deliver the keynote address.
“There is that disrespect in that district (eHlanzeni). We are watching that district especially the leadership of the ANC there. We are watching you. They think they can operate without the Alliance. Very soon we are coming to them or those who taught them to disrespect the communist party we will first go to them and tell them ‘look, you left a mess behind. Come clean it’,” he said, “otherwise we will remove you in your national positions because of the mess you left,” he said.
Majuba said the SACP is a powerful force in the ANC-led Alliance and had in the past been able to influence major decisions.
Addressing the scores who had come to the hall to celebrate, Majuba said that they are the ones who raised the alarm about the Gupta family’s capture of the state.
He said that’s because as communists they use the scientific tools of analysis and never get it wrong.
Only a person suitable to lead and chosen by branches will have the blessing of the SACP.
The SACP in the Mpumalanga province is lobbying nobody to take the seat left by now ANC deputy president DD Mabuza.
Anybody who will emerge as the leader of the ANC in the Mpumalanga province will have the blessing of the SACP, provincial communist leader Bonakele Majuba has said.
“We will work with anybody that emerges and who is ready to respect the Alliance,” he said over the phone.
“Whoever emerges for us its fine as long as that person will stick on principles, respect the Alliance, the ANC constitution and that of the country,” Majuba said.
Majuba is one of the key figures in Mpumalanga who campaigned tirelessly for Cyril Ramaphosa to take over the reigns as the 14th ANC President.
He was contesting Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the former AU chairwoman who had the backing of then President Jacob Zuma and of the ANC in KZN, North West, Free State, Mpumalanga as well as the uMkhonto we Sizwe, ANCYL and the ANCWL.
Ramaphosa was supported by Cosatu, SACP as well as the ANC in Western, Northern and Eastern Cape and that in Limpopo and Gauteng.
“That leader must be ready to respect all of us in the Alliance,” Majuba said on Saturday night.
The Young Communist League in the Gert Sibande region said they don’t care whether Thulasizwe Thomo or Gracious Shabangu emerges as the regional leader of the ANCYL.
“We will work with whoever is elected. Our view is that we want to see a united ANCYL after all these factions. We want a conference that will be peaceful, robust, that will not have old people who will impose their views and divide the youth. Whoever will emerge we will work with,” Gert Sibande YCL leader Ayanda Mashaba said.
Regional Task Team co-ordinator James ‘Castro’ Nkosi said they await national secretary Njabulo Nzuza’s signature on the audit report and afterwards will have a ‘cooling period’ before the date of the regional congress is announced.
“The guidelines say that once the audit report has been signed we must allow a cooling period where those branches that are not happy will lodge disputes,” said Nkosi.
Nkosi will face off Mcebo Zwane for the position of regional secretary and Shabangu, who is in the Zwane slate as chairman, will face off Thomo, the former spokesman of the league in the region.
Their campaign is to replace Trevor Nkosi, the popular and affable regional youth leader who in mid-2016 got elected as the Mpumalanga ANCYL deputy chairman.
He addressed scores with the vigour needed to ascend to the ANC’s highest office.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa believes in slates but wants the losing one to accept the winning one as their elected leaders for the sake of the survival of the ANC.
He said if he himself doesn’t win in December he will just “accept the decision of the majority” and rally his support behind the newly elected leadership.
Ramaphosa spoke during the Mpumalanga SACP’s Red October rally in Mbombela on Saturday and said that everyone – both candidates and delegates – will have to understand that what comes first is actually the ANC and not individuals.
“So comrades as we go to the conference we must know that this is an important conference,” Ramaphosa said at the Mbombela rugby stadium.
“Those leaders who are standing for positions and who will not succeed must accept that those who will be elected are their leaders,” he said.
“They must accept that what comes first is democratic centralism,” Ramaphosa said.
He delivered the keynote address at the communist event together with SACP national deputy chairman Thulas Nxesi.
“Myself as Cyril Ramaphosa if I don’t get enough votes we must accept the decision of the majority of the delegates of the conference,” the Deputy President told supporters in black CR17 t-shirts.
“I’m willing to accept the decision of the majority of the conference. If I don’t succeed, I will humble myself and accept the results and the leadership that will be elected,” he said to applause.
Ramaphosa will face off with Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in December when the ANC convenes its 54th national congress.
The two are forerunners in the race to succeed outgoing President, Jacob Zuma, on 16-20 December.
Other runners who have declared their interests for the ANC presidency are Lindiwe Sisulu, Zweli Mkhize, Baleka Mbete and Mathews Phosa.
The ANC in the province snubbed the rally, saying it was told nothing about it and instead endorsed the one held by the ANCWL in KwaMhlanga, addressed by Dlamini-Zuma.
Bonakele Majuba, the party’s leader in Mpumalanga, thanked the crowds for coming despite being intimidated, apparently by leaders of branches aligned to ANC provincial leader DD Mabuza – who is opposed to Ramaphosa ascending to the highest ANC job.
“We know that some of you were stopped while you were coming here. Buses were stopped and some of you were even told that if you come here you will lose your jobs and all those kind of things,” Majuba said.
Posters are already out featuring key alliance partners leaders who will also talk.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is once more taking his campaign to the backyard of DD Mabuza.
This time he will be hosted by Bonakele Majuba – the SACP’s leader in the Mpumalanga province, during the party’s Red October Rally at the Mbombela rugby stadium.
Two weeks ago Ramaphosa spoke in Jackson Mthembu’s ward during a lecture on the late heroic Mpumalanga ANC leader Gert Sibande – who used to be called ‘the Lion of the East’ and fought hard against Apartheid rule before his death in Swaziland in the 1980s – organised by the Mpumalanga Cosatu.
During the Sibande lecture – held at the Millennium hall in Ackerville, eMalahleni on 3 November, Ramaphosa spoke frankly about the need to rescue the ANC and its government from being captured by the Gupta family and called on supporters to fight for the historical mission of the ANC, that of “running the country and its economy”.
Mthembu, an open CR17 campaigner and ANC’s chief whip in Parliament, is from ward 22 Ackerville area where Ramaphosa spoke on the 3 November.
The SACP’s Red October Rally will be on the Saturday morning of 18 November 2017 at the rugby stadium and this year’s theme is; Red Card Against Women and Children Abuse.
Also party national chair Thulas Nxesi as well as Cosatu national deputy secretary Solly Phetoe and Mpumalanga SANCO secretary Mike Soko will speak at this event.
It was a celebration marking 3 decades of existence but also to clarify what kind of unity the trade unions want in the ANC.
Cosatu’s biggest affiliate has once more called on members and alliance partners to rally behind Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, saying the only unity that they must entertain is the one which maintains the ANC tradition of deputy succeeding an outgoing president.
“You see comrades, there are those who are saying there is no such thing as the principle and tradition of the ANC but we know that in 1949 an ANC conference resolved on this matter, that the deputy president must succeed the president,” Cosatu 2nd deputy president Zingiswa Losi said to deafening applause.
Fikile Majola, ex-Nehawu national leader – who is also a member of Parliament – said he was in Cape Town when he heard that Nehawu had called on Zuma to step down and was not shocked because he knew Nehawu members as the children of Bheki Mkhize and Yure Mdyogolo – the union’s founders – “and they were right”.
“And they can’t be wrong. You see, from 2005 when deputy president Jacob Zuma was under siege we stood up to defend him, to defend principle and we said ‘you can’t say when it’s time for the deputy to succeed the president you are gonna use the Scorpion to deal with the succession battles’. We said no. We stood by the principle that the deputy president must become the president.
“We stood by Zuma long time ago when people were not there with him because of principle and today we are right that he must be succeeded by comrade Cyril,” Majola said on Friday at the St Marks International School hall in Mbombela.
Nehawu national leader Zola Saphetha delivered the key note address at the public sector trade union’s 30th anniversary, with Mpumalanga SACP leader Bonakele Majuba, ANC provincial deputy chairwoman Violet Siwela and SANCO PEC member Phakamile Thwala delivering messages of support.
Siwela said as ANC Mpumalanga they want unity and will give it to branches to make pronunciations.
“As the leader of the alliance we must take responsibility. We must account to our masses, not to ourselves,” she said.
Majuba said the unity that is being talked about in the Mpumalanga province was started by Ramaphosa during the provincial Alliance Summit that united him and ANC provincial leader David Mabuza.
United by Ramaphosa during the Alliance Summit in 2015. PIC by Caxton News
“Therefore when we talk unity we must be sure of what we are talking about. Unity is not rhetoric. Unity is to make sure that the people of South Africa are united in order to achieve total liberation.
“In Mpumalanga, when we were divided there was a man who came here and united us in the alliance summit and that man was none other than Cyril Ramaphosa,” Majuba said.
Fighting leaders of the ANCYL in Nkangala have “put aside” their differences for the unity of chair Bobo Mtshweni and his rival secretary Thabang Mathebula.
eMalahleni businessman Themba ‘Masofa’ Sgudla has roped in a local traditional leader to register a political party ahead of the 2019 general elections.
