By Thobile Jiwulane

For the first time since South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, the leading African National Congress (ANC) will be contesting elections without its longtime and trusted political ally, the South African Communist Party (SACP) next year – one of the most interesting developments in the country’s political dynamics.

Although the SACP is a small party, it has played a significant role within the former liberation movement. Many would say that it “punched above its weight,” as it held senior strategic positions in both the ANC and state structures, influencing policy direction for the ANC. The party attributes many of the ANC’s effective policies to its advice and guidance. During the white apartheid rule, the SACP was one of the most feared among the white population, who were socialised by the then-ruling National Party to hate Communism. Its leaders were portrayed in the white media as dangerous, and at some point, Joe Slovo, one of the party’s top leaders, was declared ‘Enemy No. 1’ by the apartheid regime.

The gradual breakdown of the marriage between the ANC and the SACP has been brewing for at least a decade. However, the SACP does not view this as a breakaway; instead, it maintains that it will continue to be part of the ANC-led tripartite alliance, which comprises the ANC, the SACP, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

For more than a decade, this Marxist-Leninist leftist party has repeatedly expressed its intention to contest elections independently rather than under the ANC umbrella. However, this intention largely became an on-and-off superficial debate. Despite wanting to operate separately, initially, the likelihood of actual change diminished with time while the SACP remained affiliated with the ANC, with many of its top brass holding senior positions within the ANC Cabinet and other state entities as members of the ANC.

The SACP was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa, nine years after the ANC’s formation, with the aim of pursuing a Marxist-Leninist agenda and was fashioned as a vanguard of the working class in society. Both organisations identified a common enemy in the white apartheid regime, which institutionalised racial discrimination through its racist laws. Their shared struggle against apartheid policies brought the SACP and ANC closer together, leading to the formation of the Tripartite Alliance. At the time, the third component was the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTWU), a predecessor of the COSATU.

When the ANC was banned in 1960 by the white National Party government, the SACP had already been banned ten years earlier by the apartheid authorities. This forced its leaders to operate underground, where their collaboration with the ANC grew even stronger. During their clandestine activities, the two organisations united to launch an armed struggle, resulting in the establishment of the ANC military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, in 1961. The MK military high command had Nelson Mandela at its core and as its first commander-in-chief.

Following a massive crackdown by the apartheid police, a large number of ANC and SACP top leaders were arrested at their rendezvous — a secluded farm owned by a Jewish SACP activist named Arthur Goldreich in Rivonia, with Mandela caught later. The ordinary-looking farm, situated on the northern outskirts of Johannesburg, became an underground cell for the banned leaders, who had already received military training. There, they had planned acts of sabotage against the apartheid state in the early 1960s, initially targeting power pylons until they were raided and arrested as a group.

The mass arrests led to the famous Rivonia Trial from 1963 to 1964, after which the convicted leaders were imprisoned on Robben Island, a small penal facility located off the Cape Peninsula. Mandela remained there serving a life jail term between 1964 and 1990, when he was released after a brief pre-release stay at Cape Town’s Victor Verster Prison. He served 27 years of his jail time.

The SACP appears serious about its separation move, at least on elections. Tensions reached a climax during the SACP special congress held in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, in December 2024. At this congress, the party activated its long-standing resolution to contest elections independently. It clearly stated that there would be no turning back and announced its plan to embark on a separate electoral journey in the upcoming 2026 local government elections, flying its own red banner. It’s preparing to launch its historic election campaign, signalled by its consultative meeting with the powerful traditional leaders last week.

When the final decision was made in December, the move was largely taken for granted within the ANC, with many speculators believing it wouldn’t actually happen. Realising it had misjudged the situation, in a recent Alliance political meeting, the ANC tried to persuade its partner to reconsider, but their efforts were unsuccessful as the SACP insisted on proceeding independently in 2026 and beyond.

The SACP decision came when Mandela’s party was at its weakest. It lost in the May 2024 national and provincial elections, dropping from 57% to a paltry 40%. This forced it to cobble together a government of national unity (GNU) with nine other parties, with the vociferous and demanding Democratic Alliance (DA) being the second largest party after the ANC in the coalition. 

The participation of the capitalism and free market-advocating DA in the GNU angered the SACP and all the leftists within, prompting the SACP to go its separate way, although it still wants to keep its relationship with the ANC intact. The envious ANC Left partners (SACP and COSATU) feel outmanoeuvred and sidelined after the ANC primarily partnered with the DA to establish the GNU, with scant consultation with them by their leading partner.

The nationalist ANC, dominated by the moderates within the party with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the head, feel strongly that the DA remains an important component of the GNU. This position is reinforced by the view of analysts, who said that although the ANC could easily govern without the DA with a coalition of the smaller parties, it was vital for it to keep the DA in the coalition. The DA’s presence in the GNU, the experts argue, would reassure foreign investors who would rather feel comfortable with the white-dominated party that pursues capitalism as its core policy. The alternative, or the worst case scenario as some say, is for the ANC to form a strongly left-leaning coalition with the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by the rouble-rousing Julius Malema and perhaps, remotely, with the Umkhonto Wesizwe party (MKP) formed by former President Jacob Zuma on 16 December 2023.

The ANC moderates openly oppose any coalition with both leftist EFF and MKP. They regard the EFF as too radical to work with especially with its uncompromising anti-white rhetoric while they question MKP’s commitment to the rule of law.  The latter is consistently at odds with the judiciary and calls for a ban on Roman-Dutch law, which underpins the country’s legal system, favouring traditional law instead.

Besides, Zuma is considered a constitutional delinquent and the wrong person to pronounce on any changes in the legal system, as he is always in trouble with the law. He is currently in a lengthy trial related to corruption stemming from the state’s notorious Arms Deal.

Realising what lies ahead, the already weakened ANC is beginning to panic as the SACP drifts away from it. It is expected to lose many working-class votes to the SACP, which would rely on its strong influence and support from the leftward COSATU. Already disgruntled with the ANC’s recent anti-worker policy changes, the two million-strong trade union federation was set to influence its affiliates’ memberships to vote for the SACP and abandon the ANC.

The ANC has faced criticism from its alliance partners for pursuing a neoliberal agenda, which they argue undermines the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). The NDR serves as a unifying strategy for the alliance, aiming for complete transformation towards a fully free, non-racial, non-sexist, and democratic society, with socialism as the ultimate goal.

Socialism had always been the goal of the liberation struggle in South Africa. It was based on the two-stage revolution that was planned to begin with the achievement of political freedom, led by the ANC as the first stage. The second state was total economic transformation, led by the SACP, which was billed to take the process to full-blown socialism. That theory was hammered into the minds of the masses throughout the struggle years since the alliance was founded.

With the SACP at the exit door, the ANC faces a lonely future. The rivalry between these two parties is expected to escalate as they vie for the same voter base: the poor black citizens. On one hand, the ANC is confronting this challenge from one of its own, while on the other, it is grappling with disillusioned black voters who feel let down by the party’s rampant corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, and messy immigration policies.

It is too late for the ANC, previously known as the “Glorious Movement”, which was once led by Nelson Mandela, to make significant changes, some plastering of the wound, at this point. The local elections, viewed as a barometer of the future national poll, are fast approaching. Any attempts to superficially address these issues will likely fail; healing the deep-seated problems will take considerable time and effort.