By Fred M’membe (Socialist Party President)
ONE YEAR OF BOASTING, SELF PRAISE AND EXALTATION
While the political parties of our political opponents mostly represent the interests of a particular group of people, business or imperialist interests, our party is not a parochial association or grouping, and does not represent the particular interests of just a certain segment of the population.
Our party does not have its own special interests and never represents the interests of any specific interest group, any establishment, any privileged class or imperial interests.
Ours is different type of political party. Ours is an ideologically driven political party which is seeking truth from facts and which bases itself on the interests of the broad masses of our people, and not on the profit interests of transnational corporations and imperialist interests. We will never hire ourselves out to or be hired by transnational corporations and imperialist interests. We will always maintain an independent line and never be puppets, lackeys or agents or transnational corporations and imperialist interests.
And being ideologically driven doesn’t mean we are dogmatic in our approach. In whatever we do, we are always striving to link theory with practice. And the spirit of criticism and self-criticism is well entrenched in our party Constitution. Our party pays special attention to the ideological and political education of its members. Today our party runs or is associated with three ideological and political schools on our continent, one in Latin America and another in Asia.
And in whatever politics we engage we are always mindful of keeping our revolutionary mission, the socialist strategic objective firmly in mind. Our political engagements cannot be understood as a kind of political power struggle that our political opponents specialise in, much less a personal battle. The politics we engage in are a critical analysis of and reflections on tendencies that ignore the purpose of politics, misconstrue the political policies, and consequently harm the overall interests of the country.
Ours is a learning political party that maintains open discussion internally among its members and externally between itself and the people. And we constantly evaluate and elaborate the lessons from both our successes and failures. Through learning, we recognise problems and find gaps, adhere to the truth, and correct our mistakes.
We are constantly striving to improve our knowledge and practice. Contrast our approach to politics with that of our polictical opponents who seem to be obsessed with self praise and exaltation! We have witnessed a year full of boasting, an ending promises and praise!