SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila told a special congress of the party in Boksburg that a decision had been taken to break the long-standing alliance with the African National Congress (ANC) for the 2026 elections. The decision followed a bilateral meeting with the ANC on November 24 in which many of the grievances of the SACP were discussed but the Party leaders were not satisfied at the replies given by the ANC. The SACP will work out the details of its future strategy at the special national congress to be held shortly.

The ruling tripartite alliance also consists of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). COSATU has not yet reacted to the decision of the SACP. The SACP has its influence on this trade union body, so the political circles are observing whether COSATU will follow the footsteps of the SACP or remain with the ANC as the usual partner. SACP will continue to have political relations with ANC as a part of tripartite alliance, this break up is limited to the local elections for the present,

The differences between ANC and the SACP were brewing for the last two years and earlier also, there was proposal for leaving the alliance and fighting solo. But that was not acceptable to the leadership taking into account the need to jointly meet the challenge of the conservative forces in the country. In May this year, the national elections were held in which the ruling alliance fought together but for the first time in the last three decades, the tripartite alliance got less than majority and had to seek the support of others outside the alliance.

The national elections were held on May 29 and the results were announced on June 2. The African National Congress, the ruling party of the country for the last 30 years lost its majority status with voting figure of 40 per cent. This centre-left combination including the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the trade union body COSATU was punished by the electorate for their corruption in the recent years as also failure to deal with the problem of price rise and massive unemployment. The message from the electorate was clear - ANC can still rule but it has to mend its ways for a better pro-people governance.

South Africa has a population of more than six crore. It is a leader member of the BRICS which include Brazil, Russia, China and India also. President Cyril Ramaphosa is highly respected in the developing world. South African president has been consistently lambasting Israel for its genocide in Gaza. He was the one who asked the International Crimes Commission (ICC) to declare Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the war criminal. The South African electorate did not bring the Right opposition into the government but only cut to size the ruling ANC as a big warning.

Since the minority ANC needed support from outside to form the new government it took the help from its rival party Democratic Alliance (DA) which pursues a conservative pro-business programme. DA won the second most votes with 21.8%, and the two parties agreed to form the coalition. The ANC won 159 seats in the 400-seat Parliament, down from the 230 it won in the last election. The DA increased slightly to 87 seats. So the ANC and DA together have 246 seats out of the total of 400 seats in parliament to run a stable majority government.

The African National Congress (ANC) has been ruling the nation since 1994 when Nelson Mandela became the president as the head of the ANC which led the liberation struggle against the British rulers. The ANC from the beginning was a platform of freedom fighters of different shades of political persuasion. South African Communist Party (SACP) which took a prominent part in the anti-apartheid struggle, has been a part of the ruling ANC all along and its leaders held positions of ministers in the government of ANC earlier.

SACP has been fighting inside the ANC government for the implementation of its programme. Some demands were approved, some were not, but SACP members remained loyal to the ANC regime. However, the relationship took a bitter turn during the presidentship of Jacob Zuma who was charged for corruption. He was later removed and Mr. Ramaphosa took over as the president replacing him. The new president has better ties with the SACP but the recent policy directions of the ANC-DA coalition government have convinced the SACP that the communists can not be a party to the wrong decisions of the South African government. They have to fight the policies outside also.

The political observers however feel that the SACP is using its latest decision as a pressure tactics on ANC leaders to stand by the pro-people policies of the tripartite body and not to give in to the demands of DA leaders. The next review meeting between ANC and SACP is scheduled for next month. It will be known then whether the ANC-SACP gap closes or widens. (IPA Service)