Time to move on? Why the ANC should end its SACP alliance

There was a time when the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the trade union federation, Cosatu, were the tail that wagged the dog, the ANC.

The historic tripartite alliance between the three parties meant that the SACP was always part of government without actually putting their name on the ballot box and, more importantly, they influenced government policy through this alliance with the ANC.

Before the dawn of democracy, it made complete sense that the ANC and SACP were in an alliance. After all, all ANC activities and activists were branded “communist and terrorist” in nature by the apartheid government.

It therefore came as no surprise when Nelson Mandela included former SACP general secretary Joe Slovo in this country’s first democratic Cabinet.

Since then, the SACP has had some sort of representation in all ANC Cabinets, showing the extent to which the ANC values the contribution of the SACP to their alliance.

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Unfortunately, the SACP has taken this to mean it is indispensable to the ANC and always threatens to register and contest elections on its own.

This past weekend, it did the same and is saying it will contest the 2026 local government elections on its own.

It might come as a shock to it that no-one is holding their breath. In fact, the only people that are worried are those SACP leaders that made it into Cyril Ramaphosa’s government of national unity because they are probably aware that should the SACP contest elections on its own, it would have to choose who its loyalties lie with.

SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila has been the loudest voice in opposition to the ANC going into coalition with their traditional enemies, the DA.

In fact, it has been calling Ramaphosa and his comrades traitors because they have been accusing them of betraying the revolution by going into government with DA.

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According to the SACP, the ANC should have instead waited for as long as it would take the uMkhonto weSizwe (MKP party and the EFF to decide if they wanted to go into government with them.

The SACP has been delaying its own entry into the election arena because even though its leadership shout with the loudest voices about what they perceive as wrong with the ANC’s actions, they know that they have had it good for decades courtesy of the ANC.

Its former general secretary Blade Ndzimande, has become such a permanent feature of government that anyone born after the year 2000 can actually forget that he is a communist.

If the SACP actually does contest elections, it is very likely that it will instead collapse its election campaign into one with either the MK party or the EFF.

It does not have the ground infrastructure that is required to run a popular mass election campaign that would have either the ANC or DA worried about an effect on their numbers.

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The only thing it will do is inflict further damage to an already bruised and battered ANC.

The biggest favour that the ANC can do itself is ditching an alliance that is well past its sell-by date and focus on reviving itself – if that’s still a viable possibility.

Its best advice to its struggle-era alliance partner would be to stop with the threats and actually lace up its gloves and get in the arena.

To quote one they would consider an imperialist president, Theodore Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts…the credit belongs to the man in the arena… whose face is marred by sweat and blood…”