‘Real ANC has left Luthuli House’: SACP Eastern Cape leader resigns from ruling party

The South African Communist Party’s (SACP’s) deputy provincial secretary in the Eastern Cape, Lazola Ndamase, has resigned as a member of the ANC.

Ndamase, who was an ANC branch member and a former Sasco general secretary, said he was stepping down from the ANC due to his dissatisfaction with the direction the governing party has been taking over the years, after being rocked by corruption scandals and infighting over positions.

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But it is unclear whether he has also resigned from the SACP, which is in an alliance with the ANC and trade union federation Cosatu.

In his strongly-worded resignation letter to the ANC, dated 2 November 2021, Ndamase said he was part of the contingent of SACP and ANC cadres who campaigned for the governing party in this year’s local government elections.

He said they “threw themselves body and soul into the election campaign” because he knew very well that “the electorate had no reason to vote without being mobilised” due to the ANC’s failures in government.

The letter was addressed to the regional coordinator of the ANC in OR Tambo district, Hlokomelo Tsita.

‘Majority rejecting electoral process’

Ndamase complained that since 1994, the ANC and its alliance partners had behaved in a manner that “left the majority of the population with no choice but to reject the entire electoral process”.

He said most South Africans were disillusioned about taking part in elections because they saw it “as a waste of time and only serves to help charlatans climb the ladder in alliance with the colonial settlers that took the land and wealth of the country”.

He said for many years, throughout the neoliberal policies adopted by the ANC, he held belief that it was possible for the ANC to turn around, but he does not think so anymore.

“My patience was tested during the Marikana Massacre when [the] upper echelons of the ANC turned the guns of the post-1994 state against black workers in defence of the property of the international bourgeoisie,” he said.

‘Real ANC long left Luthuli House’

Ndamase slammed the current state of ANC, saying the “real ANC [had] long left Luthuli House”.

“Worse still, membership of the ANC has meant that many of us have had to paper over the cracks that have been caused by the fact that the real ANC long left Luthuli House and is found in taverns drowning their sorrows or turns to the church to numb the pain of bitter disappointment.”

He said even though the ANC continued to win the elections despite the decline in its electoral support, the message of the majority of voters was clear that they rejected the party.

“This is not because narrowly of corruption as the bourgeois media would like everyone to believe but because many have come to the stark realisation that the post-1994 breakthrough has been buried by the fact that the economic jewel of the country remains in the hands of whites while blacks must make do with crumbs,” Ndamase said.

He added: “I hope I do not have any property of the African National Congress, if I still do, please do not hesitate to contact me so that I can hand it over.”

Ndamase also shared his views about his resignation from the ANC on Twitter:

On the evening of the 1st of November 2021 I had opportunity to again reassess my political allegiances after the rousing rejection of the post-1994 electoral system by more than half of the South African population..

— Lazola Ndamase (@Lazola_Ndamase) November 3, 2021

who rather than involve themselves in a sham of a process chose to stay away from the polls risking abandoning a process of universal suffrage for which many dearly paid the ultimate price to achieve.

— Lazola Ndamase (@Lazola_Ndamase) November 3, 2021

while the wealth of the country has remained for almost three decades after the 1994 political breakthrough in the hands of the settler colonialists assisted by junior partners co-opted from among the black elite.

— Lazola Ndamase (@Lazola_Ndamase) November 3, 2021

Contrary to the much touted lie that the low voter turnout is a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the fact of the matter is that the voter turnout has been increasing with an average of 4% with each election

— Lazola Ndamase (@Lazola_Ndamase) November 3, 2021

Compiled by Thapelo Lekabe