Red Alert — will the SACP disappear into insignificance without the ANC?

The SA Communist Party (SACP) announced at the weekend that it would contest the 2026 local elections on its own. In other words, it will no longer be working with the ANC.

This raises many questions: about whether the SACP will be able to win votes, about the presumed end of the Tripartite Alliance, about whether Blade Nzimande will stay on in the national coalition that his party detests, and about the continued fracturing of our politics.

What is most crucial is the role of Cosatu and whether it decides to back the SACP or stay with the ANC.

On Sunday, the SABC quoted SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila confirming that the party had decided to contest the local elections independently of the ANC. He said the party had taken the decision because the liberation movement was being outmanoeuvred in the national coalition government.

The idea of the SACP going it alone has been discussed for many years.

As the SACP might now discover, when you threaten to do something for many years but then fail to follow through, when you are suddenly serious you might be ignored.

The most important question is whether the SACP will be able to win enough votes to make a political impact.

As the party has not contested elections before (outside of Metsimaholo in the Free State) there is no publicly available data on this question.

However, as Ismail Lagardien has very clearly spelt out, our history since 1994 has shown that parties with an explicitly communist agenda do not win much support.

The most recent example, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party, won only 24,439 votes in the 2019 elections.

And that was despite having the support of the biggest union in the country, Numsa.

A mountain to climb

This means the SACP is likely to have a mountain to climb to have any influence in our politics.

The fact that we are now in what is likely to be a very long era of coalitions means that a party, or an individual, can sometimes have a critical influence in certain situations.

To put it another way, if the SACP is finding it difficult to influence the policy of the ANC, it may have more influence simply by standing for office and winning enough votes to join coalitions, and thus influence those in power.

However, the SACP might find that its long alliance with the ANC is its biggest weakness. Voters might well ask why it decided to leave the alliance now, when it stayed in office during the State Capture era under President Jacob Zuma.

The claim may be made that it is being unprincipled and is only leaving the ANC when it is weak, after enjoying the fruits of high office while it was strong.

Nzimande’s role will be key in the party’s future.

If the SACP contests against the ANC in 2026, will he leave Cabinet?

If he doesn’t, on what basis would he remain? His party would not be in an alliance with the ANC, and clearly would not join the national coalition.

If he were to remain in Cabinet under these circumstances it would further demonstrate how he is without principle.

It does appear that the SACP’s frustration with the formation of the national coalition and the ANC’s decision to work with the DA are the root causes of its decision.

As previously explained, while the SACP has consistently argued that the ANC should not be working with the DA, it has still not provided any other credible options. What else could the ANC have done? Especially when the EFF and MK started from the negotiating position that the ANC’s leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, must be removed.

Of course, for the SACP to make any impact at all on our politics it needs organisation and resources.

Two years ago the party said it had more than 300,000 members. This should mean that the party can organise those members into a formidable force.

The role of Cosatu

However, it has been perennially short of money. For many years it used offices at Cosatu House and has not shown any evidence of having the resources it would need to contest elections.

One of the other fundamental questions revolves around Cosatu.

If the union federation were to also leave the alliance and fully back the SACP, it could have a huge impact, as Cosatu would presumably bring organisation and money.

And Cosatu leaving the ANC would further weaken the party.

While Cosatu leader Zingiswa Losi said before the elections that she would prefer the ANC to work with the EFF rather than the DA (this was before MK won more votes than the EFF) she has since defended the ANC’s decision to work with the DA.

Considering the internal challenges within Cosatu, and how some unions have said they will not support the ANC, while others have opposed leaving the alliance, the most likely outcome is that Cosatu will be split on this issue.

It will probably avoid making an explicit decision about supporting the SACP, which means its member unions may make their own decisions — or they might avoid campaigning in elections altogether.

While the SACP’s decision to leave the ANC may come as a shock, it is simply part of the continuing fracturing of our politics.

As the ANC’s support base started to vote for other parties and South Africa’s full political diversity emerged, the SACP was a prime candidate to contest elections on its own.

Its reasons for this decision are structural; in our crowded coalition politics it may be able to have more influence than going through the ANC.

It is clear that the structures that have been in place for many years are breaking down, and the SACP’s decision is an important part of a process that still has some way to run. DM