COMMUNISTS branded top ANC leaders “rotten to the core” yesterday, indicating growing calls for a split in the movement that liberated South Africa from apartheid.

Speaking to the City Press newspaper, South African Communist Party (SACP) second deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila laid into President Jacob Zuma’s government over the recent crisis over benefit payments.

“We find it difficult to be led by people of absolute decadence who are rotten to the core and are not willing to change their ways,” he stormed ahead of a crunch bilateral meeting between the SACP and ANC.