The South African Communist Party (SACP) strongly condemned the EFF’s disruption of Thursday night’s state speech, saying it had nothing to do with freedom of speech or democratic rights.
Solly Mapaila, second general secretary (and therefore more or less deputy leader) of the SACP, addressed the Cape Press Club on Friday afternoon, saying it was disruption and nothing but the abuse of parliament.
About former president, FW de Klerk pointed out to Mapaila that it was a pity that De Klerk did not want to admit that apartheid was a crime against humanity, and that under De Klerk’s rule the state had instigated violence as according to Mapaila by the Goldstone Commission of Inquiry is not proven.
The SACP stands firmly behind the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, in his war on corruption and state hijacking, and therefore condemns the EFF’s behavior towards Gordhan. “It is especially the racial overtone in the attacks on Minister Gordhan that bothers us,” Mapaila explained, reminding the audience that the SACP was the first non-racial political organization in South Africa.
According to Mapaila, sometime in the future, the SACP will break “when the time is right” with the ANC and fight elections independently, but at present, they are getting more right by being in government.
As examples of ideas that would not be government policy if the SACP did not pursue them, he cited national health insurance, a state bank, and a state pharmaceutical company.
Mapaila said privatization undermines state-run institutions and the SACP will only support SAA business’s provided it contributes to the reform rather than the dissolution of SAA.
