Disgruntled ANC members wanting to found their own party are set on destroying the ruling party, SA Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande said on Tuesday.

"[Their] political outlook and motto is: 'Either we continue to control... the ANC or we destroy it'," Nzimande told a national congress of the National Union of Mineworkers of SA (Numsa).

"This splinter group has sought to defy internal democratic processes, by planning to leave the ANC because they failed to control it."

Nzimande said the "splinter group" used the masses to garner enough votes to ascend to state power and would then abuse benefits such as black economic empowerment.

"It is not an accident that BEE has been narrow and benefiting only a small elite," said Nzimande.

"It is therefore only this agenda that can be pursued by the splinter group, to find new outlets to pursue a class agenda. For these reasons it is also a reactionary agenda that will only be interested in using the mass of the people for narrow class agendas."

He said those who were "crying foul of lack of democracy" in the ANC in fact presided over some of the "most undemocratic practices" in the movement.

"Its attacks and venom are solely directed at the ANC, and it attempts to try and derail the ANC's election campaign, and [is] clearly seeking to forge a relationship with some opposition elements on the right of the political spectrum in South Africa," said Nzimande.

Sapa