The South African Communist Party (SACP) has publicly endorsed Jacques Pauw's book "The President's Keepers". SACP secretary-general Blade Nzimande on Sunday called on SACP members to buy Pauw's book because it exposed the abuse of the intelligence services.
According to IOL, Nzimande said: "We want to officially say as the SACP, go buy and read that book by Jacques Pauw, because half of the things he says are things we have been saying as the SACP, including the abuse of our intelligence services.
You can't use intelligence [services] against your own allies. We know we are being listened to."
Apart from startling revelations such as how President Jacob Zuma allegedly earned a R1-million per month salary from a security company during his first four months in office, the book also reveals how intelligence services infiltrated the #FeesMustFall protests.
Nzimande warned that the SACP is not prepared to campaign for the ANC "until Jesus comes". He reportedly warned that the ANC did not campaign alone for previous elections, and therefore it could not make decisions alone, according to News24.
"There is a man who wakes up and changes the Cabinet as if he was the only one who was campaigning. We campaigned, not him alone. There is no election that the ANC has campaigned for alone. We have campaigned together, so therefore we must all make decisions," Nzimande reportedly said, in a veiled reference to President Jacob Zuma's recent Cabinet reshuffle.
Nzimande was addressing the SACP's Red October rally in Durban on Sunday. He was fired as higher education minister during the reshuffle, amid complaints that Zuma did not consult the alliance partners before reshuffling Cabinet.
He said the ANC could not expect the SACP to campaign for it forever.
"To be honest, as the ANC, did you think we would campaign for you until Jesus comes? Especially after we have suffered so much under the ANC? We are kicked out of council because we are communist and our names are left out of branch lists because you say we are communists but you expect us to campaign, no."
Nzimande reiterated threats made by the SACP to go it alone in 2019 by contesting the elections, should relations with the ANC not improve.
"...You have a lot of work to do. Go and build on the ground... because if the ANC makes a mistake in December and comes out with muddled decisions and leaders we don't approve of, it means we will have a lot of work to do," he reportedly said.
Nzimande also called for an end to corruption in the state, and said the legacy of apartheid and colonial rule needed to be dealt with.
According to TimesLive, he said: "Firstly‚ we must eliminate the persisting legacy of colonial rule‚ apartheid oppression‚ capitalist exploitation and its imperialist domination. We must solve the resultant problems of inequality‚ unemployment‚ poverty and social insecurity.
"Secondly‚ we must deliver ever greater political‚ economic and social progress through democratic transformation‚ development and delivery of quality services to the people.
"Thirdly‚ we must bring to an end malfeasance in our state. We must deal decisively with state capture and corruption both in the public and private sectors."
He said that the crisis of patronage accompanies the crises of "cancerous corruption" and "the crisis of governance decay".
"Associated with these crises is the crisis of patronage and factional networks in collaboration with parasites and elements of monopoly capital pursued in the name of radical economic transformation."