SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila says the party will not submit to ANC demands forcing dual members to declare allegiance.
Image: Matthews Baloyi
South African Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Solly Mapaila says the party will not descend into “abuse” of the ANC, requiring members with dual membership to choose sides ahead of the 2026 local government elections.
He was speaking at a media briefing on Thursday in Johannesburg.
The remarks come as the ANC prepares to send letters to members holding dual membership after a National Executive Committee (NEC) decision to enforce constitutional provisions barring members from joining or supporting another political party.
The ANC has reportedly told members who also belong to the SACP to say, within 10 days from Thursday, which party they will support in the 2026 local government elections.
This affects several senior leaders, including mineral and petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe, higher education minister Buti Manamela, who all belong to both organisations.
Mapaila said the SACP has never had a problem with the ANC contesting elections in its own right.
"The SACP has never disciplined or threatened any of its members for participation in building, voting for and campaigning for the ANC.
“In fact, as the history of the past 30 years of our hard-won universal adult suffrage since 1994 shows, the SACP has not only embraced the ANC contesting elections in its own right but has also supported the ANC’s electoral contests – to the extent of the SACP even reserving its own right to contest elections directly in favour of voting for and campaigning for more votes beyond ours for the ANC within the framework of the Alliance.”
He said the ANC NEC leadership has moved beyond tactical disagreement on the SACP’s decision to contest the 2026 local government elections independently.
“Through its internal speaking notes and related directives, the ANC has sought to turn a tactical difference into an administrative and disciplinary ultimatum directed at communists inside the ANC.
“The ANC demands declarations from members of the SACP and threatens action against those it believes are acting for the Party’s campaign, while insisting there should be no witch-hunts.”
He said this was not a minor procedural adjustment but “a serious anti-communist political move with far-reaching implications”, which also changes the character of the ANC.
“It amounts to an attempt to reinterpret the Alliance and dual membership in narrow electoral and one-sided compliance terms.
“It seeks to reduce a historic strategic relationship, forged in a bitter struggle for national liberation with shared blood, sacrifice and shared battles, into a one-sided demand for subordination and permanent support from an ally while never considering reciprocating the same support for a single moment or, literally, a single second of time measurement.
“This is, in substance, the essence of the ‘ultimatum’ to communists in the ANC.”
He said the SACP rejects the approach.
“We reject it not because we reject discipline. On the contrary, ours is a Party of iron discipline. We reject it because no genuine alliance can be sustained on the basis of coercion by one partner exercising its independence but coercing another against exercising its own independence."
"Dual membership was never meant to abolish the SACP's right to think, organise, campaign and lead struggles and develop tactics on any question as an independent party of the working class.”
Mapaila said the party rejects the approach because current challenges did not arise from the SACP’s decision to contest elections.
“They arose from political deviations on the liberation agenda and radical economic changes required to make liberation tangible and meaningful to the masses; prevarication on the common ownership of the land and the wealth beneath it; a deeper crisis in the movement, characterised by mass disillusionment and declining voter turnout; neoliberal drift by the government; control of the economy and economics of our country by monopoly capital and foreign forces, including the Harvard group; corruption and patronage; factionalism; and the marginalisation of working-class solutions in major policy questions.”
He said these issues are reflected in the common Alliance manifesto.
“No amount of administrative enforcement can resolve a political crisis whose roots lie in the lived reality of the people.
“The SACP, therefore, reaffirms clearly and without ambiguity that our decision to contest the 2026 local government elections directly under our own banner shall continue. We will implement it without fear.”
He said the SACP will not accede to ultimatums.
“All SACP members who are also ANC members must continue to conduct themselves with dignity, discipline and revolutionary ethics.
“We will not answer provocation with provocation. We will not descend into abuse, mudslinging or anti-ANC rhetoric.”
He said members must support one another and intensify political work.
“The answer to intimidation is not paralysis. It is an organisation.”
Cape Times