Mashatile says ANC must agree to SACP reconfiguration demands

The ANC has been forced to agree to the South African Communist Party’s (SACP) long-standing demand for the reconfiguration of the Tripartite Alliance so that other partners have a say in the decision-making, including governance issues.

This means when the ANC makes senior appointments or deployments to the state, it must first discuss the decision with its alliance partners.

Addressing the SACP’s 5th special national congress in Boksburg, ANC Deputy President Paul Mashatile said the question of alliance reconfiguration would be back on the party’s agenda as soon as January when the party’s national executive committee convened to start the new year.

“The reconfiguration of the alliance must come back. The time has arrived for us to do it, we are in a new situation now,” Mashatile said, confirming the two organisations would meet soon to discuss the issue further.

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The decision by the ANC to consider reopening talks has been welcomed by senior SACP members.

SACP national chairperson Blade Nzimande and Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA) national secretary Mzwandile Thakhudi agreed that the ANC decision was long overdue. However, neither of them would commit to whether the SACP would still contest future polls on its own.

“That’s a very important commitment, we had wanted this thing a very long time ago. But if there is a renewed commitment from the ANC, my own view is that we have a duty as an alliance to reopen the discussions on this particular matte,” Nzimande said.

‘Long overdue’

Nzimande added that it had not been SACP alone that had been asking for the reconfiguration, but also Cosatu. He said it was not important to him where the pressure came from, but the ANC’s change of heart on the issue was significant. “If now there is this commitment by the deputy president there, that is an important one,” Nzimande said.

YCLSA’s Thakudi said the league welcomed the ANC move because it’s long overdue. He added that regular consultation needs to take place within the alliance.

“It is necessary that we synthesise the policy discussions before they are actioned. Secondly, we’ve got to have a common assessment of the state of the national democracy revolution which is our agenda. We say this is long overdue because these discussions were held a long time ago. So we are really happy now that there is commitment,” Thakudi said.

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The differences over reconfiguration and the DA’s participation in the GNU had exacerbated the tension between the ANC and SACP, resulting in the party threatening to contest the 2026 elections separately.

The SACP was also agitated by the ANC making decisions unilaterally and merely consulting its partners after the fact, or sometimes not at all.

The Tripartite Alliance is made up of the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the SACP.

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