Resolute: SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila delivers the Party message at the COSATU 40th Anniversary Rally. Photo: SACP
The South African Communist Party (SACP) has publicly defied efforts by the ANC to reverse its decision to contest the 2026 local government elections independently, with the deepening rupture within the tripartite alliance that was laid bare at this week’s commemoration of Joe Slovo’s death.
SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila used the platform of the 31st anniversary on Tuesday to confirm that the party would proceed with preparations to go it alone, announcing that a manifesto conference would be held in March to finalise its local government election programme.
He said this in the presence of ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa and despite sustained pressure from ANC leadership structures urging the SACP to abandon its plan to contest elections outside the tripartite alliance framework which also includes labour federation Cosatu.
Mapaila said the manifesto conference would bring together communities, trade unions, informal traders, youth, women, faith-based activists and other working-class formations to determine a “people’s manifesto” for municipalities, drawing applause from SACP supporters gathered at Avalon Cemetery in Soweto.
“Where we contest and where we govern, our approach will be clear: insourcing of workers rather than labour broking; participatory budgeting; land release for housing, agriculture and co-operatives; public employment programmes linked to social needs; support for co-operatives and township enterprises; firm action against corruption; and socially just responses to energy insecurity,” Mapaila said in his speech.
“Our commitment to the alliance remains firm. We recognise the historic unity forged in struggle between the SACP, ANC and Cosatu. But unity must be principled. We defend the alliance best when we defend the working class and advance socialist-oriented transformation.”
The SACP decision comes despite multiple pleas by the ANC for its support and warnings that a refusal could weaken the alliance and fragment its support base ahead of the 2026 polls.
The ANC says the SACP’s independent electoral participation would confuse voters, undermine alliance cohesion and dilute the liberation movement vote, particularly in already fragile municipal councils.
At its national general council (NGC) last month — which Mapaila did not attend — the ANC resolved that SACP-deployed representatives would be barred from participating in its election strategy meetings, citing the party’s new status as a political competitor.
The ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), its highest decision-making body between conferences, has also resolved to stop allowing dual membership of both parties, a long-standing feature of alliance politics.
“How do you contest against the ANC while also being part of the Communist Party?” ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula told journalists at the time.
“In the past, we did not have any problems with dual membership. Now, if you contest on your own, the issue of dual membership is definitely on the agenda.”
Mbalula told the December national general council that the NEC had effectively issued the SACP with an ultimatum: either reverse the decision to contest elections independently or risk SACP members losing their ANC membership.
This week, ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe told the Mail & Guardian that the price the SACP would pay for ditching the alliance could be its complete removal from the public space.
Mapaila, however, told supporters at the Slovo commemoration that the SACP would not backtrack on its decision, framing the 2026 local government elections as a decisive political battleground.
“The 2026 local government elections will be a crucial terrain of class struggle,” Mapaila said, adding that the elections would not be a routine bureaucratic exercise but a contest over control of municipalities and the direction of local governance in the interests of the working class.
“It is within this context that the SACP has resolved that independent participation in elections is a necessary option for defending working-class interests,” he said, characterising the move as an assertion of political independence rather than a rejection of the alliance.
He said the tripartite alliance had been forged as an instrument of the working class and its historic strength lay in “unity of purpose, mass mobilisation and clarity that national liberation was inseparable from social and economic transformation”.
“Today, the alliance faces paralysis. It is weakened by class compromise, bureaucratisation, corruption and the dominance of neo-liberal orthodoxy in state policy. Instead of being a centre of struggle, it is too often reduced to an electoral arrangement detached from workplace and community struggles,” he asserted.
“An alliance that tolerates neo-liberalism, austerity and privatisation cannot claim revolutionary purpose. Unity without a class line is not unity, it is surrender.”
Ramaphosa, addressing the commemoration before Mapaila’s speech, had urged the SACP to reconsider its decision, warning that it could divide the Alliance and weaken the broader liberation movement.
Ramaphosa said the ANC was on record in its view that the decision by the SACP to contest elections on its own would be a “historic mistake” that risked distracting voters and undermining the movement’s hold on state power.
Despite this appeal, Mapaila maintained that independent participation by the SACP would, in fact, strengthen unity rather than weaken it.
He said the decision was not an attack on the Alliance, nor hostility toward the ANC, federation COSATU or South African National Civic Organisation but an exercise of working-class political independence within a revolutionary alliance framework.
Mapaila argued that genuine unity could not be built on silence in the face of corruption or policy betrayal but must be principled, ethical and led by the working class.
Mapaila previously told the M&G that the SACP expected its members to openly campaign for the party, while acknowledging the reality of dual membership within the tripartite alliance.
He said the party understood that some members occupied senior positions in the ANC and in government and would, at times, be required to act in line with those roles.
Mapaila said the SACP accepted that such members might choose to support the ANC in certain decisions and would not be sanctioned for doing so.
He said the party’s position had been communicated clearly to its structures and in public and dismissed the ongoing debate over deployments and loyalty as outdated and driven by a struggle for control.
Mapaila said the SACP was now focused on reorienting the National Democratic Revolution — the political and ideological framework that guides the strategy of the tripartite alliance — towards meeting the material needs of the majority, confronting neoliberalism and improving the living and working conditions of working people.
The simmering tension between the two alliance partners were visibly expressed during the commemoration.
As Ramaphosa approached the podium, SACP supporters sang slogans opposing the government of national unity formed after the ANC lost its outright parliamentary majority in May 2024 general elections.
They chanted “asiyifun iGNU” (we do not want the GNU), while ANC supporters responded by singing pro-Ramaphosa songs, briefly drowning out the SACP slogans.
The SACP has been openly critical of the national governing coalition which includes the Democratic Alliance — the former official opposition — but excludes the Economic Freedom Fighters and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, a configuration the SACP argues has shifted governance away from working-class priorities.
This week Mapaila sought to pre-empt claims that the SACP’s stance was motivated by resentment over exclusion from executive power. He dismissed suggestions that the party’s decision stemmed from dissatisfaction with deployment outcomes under the Ramaphosa-led ANC.
He said he had made it clear since his election as SACP general secretary that he had no interest in being deployed to government, stressing that his position was rooted in principle rather than personal ambition.
“To those who are saying we are taking this decision because we do not have deployments, I do not care about deployments. I don’t want deployment,” Mapaila said.