South Africa After the 1994 Elections: A Luta Continua!
(Excerpts of the South African Communist Party discussion document, titled “The Present Political Situation”, arising from first plenary meeting of its Central Committee held on 18 June 1994, to undertake a political assessment of the post-1994 elections in South Africa).
Following the 27 April 1994 elections, the Editorial titled “A Luta Continua” of The African Communist (No. 137, Second Quarter 1994) asked serious questions on the pressing post-election situation in South Africa, whether in the first place, what it was that had just happened? Was it liberation, a sell-out or the first beginnings of a complex and long process of democratisation?
According to the Editorial, there were some tendencies in the broad movement that presented the April elections and the May inauguration of President Mandela as the culminating moment of the liberation struggle. It argued that the significance of the moment should not be underrated, however at the same time maintained that speaking too easily of “liberation” could only serve to demobilise the main, mass-based forces.
The fact that a long struggle still lay ahead was not a reason to indulge in a demoralised “left” rejection of real advances that had been achieved. For instance, the class opponents of the National Democratic Revolution had failed to defeat the struggle, and had been forced back into working within the recently introduced Reconstruction
