Hands off Solly Mapaila, SACP tells ANC

The SACP is closing ranks in defence of its general secretary, Solly Mapaila, who has been at loggerheads with the ANC, its alliance partner, over its decision to enter into the so-called Government of National Unity (GNU) with the DA.

The SACP held a two-day conference in Khayelitsha at the weekend where it also marked its 103rd anniversary.

Mapaila didn’t mince his words last month while addressing the Nehawu National Political School, calling the ANC out for “selling out” in the light of its decision to work with the “neo-liberal forces of the DA” instead of parties such as the EFF.

SACP member Monde Nqulwana said the matter came up on Saturday and they were all in agreement that they were not happy about the way Mapaila had been treated as his views represented how the entire SACP felt.

“We are not in support of the GNU including the DA. His voice was speaking on behalf of all Communist Party (members), representing the party’s views not his own.

“All delegates voiced dissatisfaction for the way Solly was being treated as if he was talking for himself.

“We are crafting our way forward, the working class is under siege, we can no longer accept the crisis we are in,” he said.

SACP Western Cape provincial secretary general Benson Ngqentsu added that they had come to the position that the GNU was a “government of neo-liberal unity simply because it represents realignment of class forces and consolidation of their agenda”.

“This congress was a platform to reflect on the current moment, post-general elections which led us to our government constituting a GNU that the SACP was vehemently opposed to. We have developed a (position) that it is a government of neo-liberal unity, simply because it represents the realignment of class forces and consolidation of their agenda.

“Given this, market forces have now become emboldened. That is why the president was able to concede to the demands of market forces on NHI and the Bela Bill.

“The SACP is not opposed to the ANC but the government the ANC has formed called the GNU. The party is united behind what Solly has argued.

“We are unhappy with attempts by some who have been bent to isolate our general secretary. We are going to defend Mapaila, and the pronouncements he is making, he is making on behalf of the SACP,” Ngqentsu said.

On plans to contest in the 2026 local government elections, he said the SACP had made the decision in its last conference already and all structures had the responsibility to prepare for it.

Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe said the SACP had to come to the defence of Mapaila because he is the public face of the party. “If he is left high and dry, nobody will take anything he says seriously, so he would be a public face without power, without political weight.”

However the SACP had failed to recall their members from the GNU to show the ANC that they meant business, he said.

“What they failed to do is say the GNU is anti-worker, anti-black, we also recall our members of SACP from the government. The failure to say their chairperson Blade Nzimande, he must recall. If they want to be taken seriously they must walk the talk. If the GNU is anti what they stand for... (then) we are asking our members to distance themselves and also recuse themselves from serving in that GNU. It will also expose members interested in power and not policy,” said Seepe.

He said the SACP’S decision to contest the 2026 elections should be “taken with a pinch of salt until they show it”.

“Nobody believes them until they do it. This is not the first time they are talking about it. The ANC does not take them seriously. They did not engage them on the GNU, they were only willing to after the fact.”

Meanwhile the ANC said it had not done or said anything “uncomradely” about or to “Comrade Solly”.

“We have been meeting with the SACP and will continue to do so. Indeed, we will soon be meeting with the SACP at an alliance political council and bilaterally as well,” said ANC acting spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi.

A political economist and director of management consultancy Surgetower Associates, Siseko Maposa, said the formation of the GNU has exposed the “deep-seated ideological rift between the SACP and ANC, revealing an inconvenient truth: the ANC’s gradual shift towards market fundamentalism since 1994 is irreconcilable with the SACP’s leftist principles. For years, the SACP has been complicit in this shift, but now independence may be prudent. Breaking away from the ANC may award the SACP increased political leverage but the SACP will need to forge strategic alliances,” Maposa said.

Cape Times