The SACP in the Eastern Cape has come out guns blazing against its national chairperson Blade Nzimande, warning him against any attack of its resolution to contest elections next year.
In a statement on Wednesday, the provincial leaders criticised Nzimande for his discussion document, which proposed that the party reassess its decision to contest elections and hold a special congress to renew itself. The Eastern Cape SACP said it found Nzimande’s opinion to be unfortunate, especially coming from the party’s second in command.
“We find it totally unacceptable and bordering on ill-discipline and it threatens the unity of our party,” provincial secretary Xolile Nqatha said.
Nqatha said the province rejects the vulgarisation of Marxism Leninism to defend conduct that goes against organisational principles which include democratic centralism.
“It is totally against party principles to continue to pursue the views you held after a decision has been taken. This is not different from sowing divisions in the SACP and seek to mobilise society against our congress decision.
“The congress did not ‘shoot in the dark’ and as we implement the resolution we are not ‘shooting in the dark’, the decision and the implementation plan were thoroughly discussed over a long period with comrade Blade Nzimande officiating over almost all the meetings we have held. As the SACP, we are one that the current path of neo-liberalism is the basis for the conditions of unemployment, poverty, inequality and high cost of leaving that facing the majority of South Africans.”
The personalisation of leadership poses a danger to the party’s democratic culture. When individual authority overshadows collective deliberation, it creates conditions for populism and ideological drift
— Blade Nzimande, SACP national chair
Nzimande’s paper marks a turning point for the SACP’s leadership, which has until now dug in its heels over its defiance against the ANC. Nzimande, who held the fort as leader of the SACP from 1998 until 2022, is the first of the SACP veterans to come out against the party’s resolution. Nzimande’s document will likely place him at loggerheads with his ally and successor, general-secretary Solly Mapaila, who has championed the decision to contest next year’s elections.
Nzimande said that reviewing the 2024 resolution is not a matter of bureaucratic housekeeping, but a profound political necessity. He said the conditions that informed that decision continue to evolve, including:
- the deepening crisis of governance;
- the fragmentation of the working-class movement; and
- the ideological erosion within the alliance.
“The contradictions of South Africa’s dependent capitalism, mass unemployment and social alienation have sharpened, while new forces within and outside the alliance continue to reshape the terrain of struggle. To ignore these shifts would be to succumb to dogmatism, and while confronting them squarely is to uphold the Leninist imperative of basing strategy on concrete analysis of the concrete situation,” he said.
The implementation of the resolution has far-reaching implications, particularly for the principle of dual membership with the ANC, he said, adding that dual membership is the fundamental glue of the alliance between the SACP and the ANC.
He pointed to internal weaknesses of the party which include structural and ideological challenges that impede full implementation. Chief among these is the erosion of internal cohesion.
“Democratic centralism, the principle of debate before decision, unity after decision, has been unevenly applied. In some structures, factional behaviour and personality-driven politics have supplanted collective leadership. This has weakened accountability mechanisms and fostered disunity, contradicting the Leninist conception of a disciplined vanguard.
“Relatedly, the personalisation of leadership poses a danger to the party’s democratic culture. When individual authority overshadows collective deliberation, it creates conditions for populism and ideological drift.”
If he turns around and attacks the current general secretary leading us in implementing party resolutions, we are ready to defend the current general secretary and the entire leadership collective of the central committee
— Xolile Nqatha, SACP provincial secretary
Nzimande said the SACP must reaffirm that no leader, regardless of their stature, stands above the collective, arguing that leadership legitimacy derives not from charisma or populism but from adherence to the party programme, ideological clarity and accountability to the working class.
Nqatha, however, argued that the neo-liberal policy direction is not being reversed but being consolidated under the “Government of Neo Liberal Unity” despite many years of calling for a comprehensive overhaul of the current policy path that has continued to reproduce the structural unemployment and inequality.
“The SACP resolution represent a response to these conditions to assert the voice of working class under conditions dominated by neoliberal policies for the benefit of capitalist class and some elites who seat in the table with capital. As the SACP, we refuse to be spectators under these worsening conditions of the working class. If our national chair has taken a decision to commit class suicide and break ranks with the collective of party leadership, it is the choice he has decided to make. As a province we refuse to be co-opted in such divisive conduct,” he said.
He added that the province wished to remind Nzimande that they were among the provinces that spoke in his defence when he was isolated and accused by former President Thabo Mbeki “of being extraordinarily arrogant when Nzimande led us all in defence of party positions against privatisation”.
“If he turns around and attacks the current general secretary leading us in implementing party resolutions, we are ready to defend the current general secretary and the entire leadership collective of the central committee.”
The Eastern Cape SACP called for party leaders and members to reject any efforts to divide the party, arguing that its resolution of the party to contest the 2026 local government elections has been vindicated.
“This includes the planned structural reforms that will include the privatisation of water, to be turned into a commodity at great cost to the majority.
“In summary, we are calling for our leaders to exercise their right of engagement in a much more responsible manner that reinforces SACP discipline, dignifies and defends the supremacy of its logic and not counter it and further resist casting wild aspersions on the leaders of the SACP. As the leadership of the party in the Eastern Cape, we will further engage the details contained in the article in the upcoming augmented central committee.”
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