Nuclear deal shows SA can afford free education – YCLSA

The Young Communist League of SA (YCLSA), the youth wing of the South African Communist Party, has once more called on the SACP to consider contesting power separately from the ruling ANC, starting with the 2019 national polls.

The YCLSA also said the fact that the government has budgeted R1 trillion for nuclear energy clearly shows that free education is feasible in South Africa.

This view was reiterated by YCLSA national chairperson Yershen Pillay when he delivered the Chris Hani Memorial Lecture in Klerksdorp in the North West at the weekend.

At its special congress in 2015, the league also challenged the SACP to consider contesting state power through the ballot in 2019.

“This is necessary if we are to lead the implementation of a socialist developmental path that is the only path to addressing the production and reproduction of poverty, inequality, unemployment and underdevelopment,” Pillay said.

He said if ANC branch- and regional structures failed to listen to society and self-correct, the SACP – as the vanguard part of the working class in society – must contest state power independently from the ANC.

“If the ANC, as an organisation, does not want to listen to society and correct its mistakes, then we will have no choice but to take leadership of the national democratic revolution and lead society as the SACP.”

Pillay’s call came as the ANC stalwarts experience difficulties convincing the party to hold a national consultative conference to discuss ways of self-correcting by ending factionalism and divisions within the party.

The SACP, along with Cosatu, recently called for President Jacob Zuma to step down after his unpopular Cabinet reshuffle.

Pillay criticised the leadership of trade union federation Cosatu for giving inconsistent and mixed messages on issues. This was an apparent reference to its contradictory stance when it called for Zuma to step down at the same time as Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini appeared on public platform in Kliptown, Soweto, supporting him.

“Is there some bipolarism that Cosatu is suffering from that we don’t know about? Whatever the issues are, it is of the utmost importance that Cosatu unites behind a coherent programme to end corruption and deepen, advance and consolidate the national democratic revolution.”

He also called for former Cosatu-affiliated unions Fawu and Numsa to be brought back into the federation’s fold.

Pillay said as the YCLSA, they believed that if nuclear energy was feasible, then free higher education for the poor was also feasible. “If government can budget R1 trillion for nuclear energy then government can budget for free, quality and compulsory higher education. That is our argument as the YCLSA,” Pillay said.

Earlier, political analyst Somadoda Fikeni said some members and structures in the SACP felt they were being marginalised by the ANC.

“But the main thing here is that the SACP sees in the ANC an organisation that is in decline and will not help them going forward. The ANC, seemingly, is having difficultly in uniting its own forces and is factionalised.”

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