It is naïve to think the ANC-SA Communist Party was a suicide pact that would last forever. It was always going to break at some point.
ANC officials seem to be in denial of this eventuality.
A week ago, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula gave ANC members who hold dual membership of the SACP an ultimatum to choose who they will be campaigning for in the upcoming local government elections.
This follows the SACP’s decision, taken a year ago, to contest elections independently under its own name.
The ANC hasn’t known how to respond to this new challenge. Its electoral fortunes are dwindling. In 2024, its support dipped to 40% for the first time since the 1994 democratic breakthrough.
The ANC has blamed everyone but itself for its misfortunes. The SACP decision to test its electoral viability is the latest scapegoat.
The ANC has many problems. The SACP isn’t one of them.
Threats to expel SACP members from government will not win lost votes for the ANC. The ANC has scored numerous own goals. It has tolerated corruption, allowed service delivery and municipalities to collapse and allowed the state to be plundered at will for years.
The ANC’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has recognised all these problems. In an open letter to members, he characterised the ANC as Accused Number One in corruption cases.
The ANC has scored numerous own goals. It has tolerated corruption, allowed service delivery and municipalities to collapse and allowed the state to be plundered at will for years.
Like Cosatu, the trade union federation, the SACP has played a trusty second-partner role to the ANC over the years. Its cries for equal status in the alliance have fallen on deaf ears and have been met with a dismissive attitude.
Among its biggest concerns, the ANC has to worry whom the Cosatu unions will choose to back in future elections. That is far more important than the SACP’s showing at the polls.
Cosatu has resources, including money and organisational capacity, to mobilise support for an increasingly unpopular ANC. The SACP, on the other hand, lives from hand to mouth.
This newspaper will never support the SACP’s socialism agenda. Still, we believe that voters — and our readers — are smart enough to make up their own minds.
Equally, we believe the SACP has every right to test its agenda in the marketplace of ideas with the electorate.
Our strong expectations are that the SACP will play within the rules. To date, we have nothing to be concerned about. The party has registered with the Electoral Commission of South Africa and has independently contested by-elections. The sky didn’t fall. This is how democracy works.
No-one, including the ANC, has the right to stop the SACP from presenting its ideas in an election.
The tripartite alliance — of the ANC, Cosatu and SACP — has served its main purpose: that is, to free South Africa from colonialism and apartheid. Nowhere in the few founding documents is it stated that the alliance would persist to eternity.
It is clear that the ANC has failed to politically persuade the SACP to walk back its decision to contest elections independently.
Expelling SACP members from government posts will be a myopic move. In the short term, it will create a false sense of comfort for Luthuli House.
After many years of trying, the ANC has failed to renew itself. That is its problem. Not the SACP.
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