May EC comrades bring peace to ANC

I WISH to congratulate the two Eastern Cape leaders of the ANC who have made it into the party’s second highest decision making body, the national working committee, "Two from East Cape make it onto NWC” (January 22) .

They are the speaker of the Eastern Cape legislature, Fikile Xasa, and Mdantsane-born Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula – hopefully their experience within ANC structures will bring peace and stability.

Xasa and Mapisa-Nqakula must take a note that the national democratic society is an act of creation and consciousness. It will be the outcome of the revolution and thus neither will be an accident of, as Jack Simons states in his book, Comrade Jack: The Political Lectures and Diary of Jack Simons, Novo Catenque, a "natural spontaneous growth arising from interaction between individuals each seeking their own interest”.

Similarly developmental states are social constructs devised by different role players in a particular society, given their own unique historical, domestic and global context, as well as their ideological predispositions.

Building and defending our revolutionary alliance, however, is part of the major organisational task for next year’s national elections. Working relations among alliance partners are better than ever.

We must consult each other and work together on key issues and programmes that affect our people, as we should. Much more needs to be done to improve alliance relations at national and provincial level.

The SACP and Cosatu’s alliance is borne out of struggle and it is neither an accident of history nor merely a paper alliance. It was created at the conference table and formalised through the signing of documents. The ANC, as leader of the revolutionary alliance, has the historic duty and responsibility to provide direction. The alliance partners, on the other hand, have the responsibility to support the ANC in this role.

I urge comrades Mapisa-Nqakula and Xasa to advise the committee that the most effective and concrete way of building the ANC-led alliance is through a common programme of action, based on our shared strategic objectives. The programme of action must be implemented with immediate effect this year at all levels of the organisation, and this will surely be the line to follow for every cadre of the tripartite alliance.