The South African Communist Party is the best-known socialist party in the country, and much was made by the National Party of its alliance with the African National Congress and the presence of SACP members on the ANC's candidate lists. But the SACP was not the only group of socialists standing in the April 27 elections. Green Left Weekly's Johannesburg correspondent NORM DIXON spoke shortly before the elections to PATRICK CHAN, central committee member of the Workers' Organisation for Socialist Action (WOSA) and an organiser for the Workers' List Party, which stood candidates for the new national assembly.
"The WLP is an electoral pact between WOSA, the Independent Socialist Movement and sympathetic comrades within the trade unions — some from NACTU [a small trade union federation that leans towards the politics of the PAC and AZAPO] and some from COSATU [South Africa's major union federation, which is in alliance with the ANC] and also civic organisations", Chan explained.
WOSA is South Africa's main Trotskyist organisation. Its most well-known member is party chairperson and former Robben Island political prisoner Neville Alexander. Its members are drawn from the waves of political activism that swept South Africa in the '50s, the '70s and the '80s.
Recent members have been drawn from the black consciousness movement, the ANC and the PAC. WOSA believes that "African nationalism has reached the end of its road". It rejects the "two-stage" approach of the SACP, where the fight for democracy and against racial oppression precedes the fight for socialism. WOSA has branches throughout South Africa and claims a membership of more than 5000.
Chan said that the WLP's constituents came together to promote "the formation of a movement for a mass workers' party ... We are using the elections as a tactic to that end."
The WLP stands for the right to work and jobs for all workers and unemployed people, he said. "We are campaigning for the right to work and jobs for all to be written into the constitution. We are calling for free universal health care, free education up to matriculation and free tertiary education for those who require it."
The WLP is demanding that money owed to the International Monetary Fund not be repaid. "Money owed to the IMF was accumulated by the apartheid regime. We are calling for a cessation of payments of that debt and the repayments to be redirected to social spending."
The difference between the ANC alliance and the WLP, Chan told Green Left Weekly, "is that the ANC has signed a pact with capital, and the National Party, to go into a government of national unity. In our view, that amounts to dressing capitalism in new clothing." He accused the SACP of removing socialism from the political agenda. "The commanding heights of the economy must be nationalised so the kind of social benefits that we require in this country can take place."
The WLP is critical of the ANC's Reconstruction and Development Program because "it falls far short of the requirements to democratise the country. They are talking about the creation of 2.5 million jobs over five years while we have almost 10 million people unemployed in the country." The WLP believes the RDP is a social contract that will require workers to accept wage restraint and no-strike deals.
The WLP election campaign was well received. "I have been working in the PWV — Soweto, eastern Transvaal, areas to the south of the city — and there has been a very good response from grassroots organisations and communities, and from workers."
WLP activists were able to collect more than 10,000 signatures supporting their party's candidature in the run-up to the elections. This meant the WLP qualified for funding of over R500,000 from the Independent Electoral Commission for its campaign. The WLP also qualified for 300 minutes of free air time on SABC radio stations. These have been recorded in eight languages and are being broadcast in three-minute segments.
The WLP might not take up seats it won, Chan said. A WLP conference held over Easter decided to postpone a decision until after the election, should the party win seats. "We haven't actually made up our minds whether, as a tactic, we should go into parliament or not."
Those people and organisations who believe an alternative to the left of the ANC should be built will hold a conference "for the launching of a movement for the formation of a mass workers' party (MWP)" in May or June, probably in Johannesburg. Chan added that WOSA would definitely participate in a proposed conference of the left to be convened by the SACP and COSATU in July. "We see that as very important", he said.
WOSA is working towards the establishment of a network of left organisations in the Indian Ocean region. The organisation could involve parties and groups from South Africa, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Malagasy, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Australia.