Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa should lead, says Dlamini

The launch of the South African Communist Party’s Red October campaign, “Stop Gender Based Violence – Red Card against Women Abuse”, kicked off with a fan fest for presidential hopeful Cyril Ramaphosa in Johannesburg on Sunday.

While Ramaphosa himself wasn’t there, there were plenty of people to take up the cudgels on his behalf.

South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) chairperson Chris Malematja said the organisation took a decision to go to the ANC’s December conference united.

“We appeal to the ANC to ensure there are no gatekeepers, because we don’t want to go back to court. We want to have a fair election,” Malematja said, adding it was Sanco’s wish to have Ramaphosa elected to unite the ANC/ Cosatu/SACP alliance again.

“It’s no secret that the SACP’s relationship with the ANC is at its weakest and most fragile than it has ever been,” said political analyst Daniel Silke.

“Ramaphosa is clearly on the campaign trail, he wishes to court the SACP, and he will do so with a view to keeping it as a solid member of the alliance and will want, should he be elected, to have the SACP contest the 2019 elections in the same manner it has always done,” Silke said.

Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Sdumo Dlamini said the organisation had a “very, very keen interest as workers” and as a federation about who was elected by the ANC in December.

“Because we want leadership that is capable of uniting first the ANC, but [also] the alliance as a whole. We want a leadership that will acknowledge the alliance is the political centre, a leadership that will embrace the notion that alliance partners in this alliance are equals,” Dlamini said.

“So when we say comrade Cyril Ramaphosa should lead a collective, we are saying he should lead a collective that embraces, as far as we are concerned as workers, these principles we are putting across,” said Dlamini, stating that Cosatu as a trade union would not be forming a political party.

With Lindiwe Sisulu and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma also throwing their hats into the ANC elections, it is unlikely Ramaphosa would be handed the top ANC post on a gilded platter.

Silke said that the SACP will have to make a call if the ANC’s “leadership structure is simply a continuation of the Zuma faction in power under a different guise”.

“Then it is likely the SACP would either walk away or look at distancing itself from the ANC in 2019,” he said.

– amandaw@citizen.co.za