SACP First Deputy General Secretary and Second General Deputy Secretary Solly Mapaila share a laugh at the SACP Policy Conference at the Birchwood Hotel, Johannesburg on 10 July 2017. The annual policy conference began today and will run until Thursday this week. Picture: Yeshiel Panchia
President Jacob Zuma is not welcome to give a keynote address at the South African Communist Party (SACP) congress starting today in Ekurhuleni, and is expected to deliberate on contesting 2019 elections independently.
This would be a second time this year that an alliance partner has written to Luthuli House requesting that another leader – other than Zuma – be delegated to address a congress.
During the recently held Cosatu central executive committee (CEC), the ANC was requested not to send Zuma to address the gathering, as the labour federation had expressed its dissatisfaction with Zuma’s leadership style, agreeing with DA leader Mmusi Maimane that he broke the county.
Media is reporting this morning the SACP rescinded its open-invitation to the ANC to address its congress where leaders will be elected, and decided to break the long held tradition of affording the president of the ANC to give a keynote address during the opening day of the congress.
“We had initially invited the ANC and left it to them to decide who should attend. We felt appropriately that we needed to inform the ANC that perhaps any other delegate could be much better than… sending the president who we have asked to step down”, said second deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila.
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