SACP leader Solly Mapaila and his faction are facing a rebellion as some delegates are expected to present an alternative document to counter the party's discussion document, which has proposed the party contest elections independent from the ANC.
TimesLIVE Premium has seen a document titled Towards the 2026 Local Government Elections: A Special Resolution crafted by some party delegates and leaders who have questioned the party's stance on the ANC and its alliance.
It's expected that party delegates will make alternative proposals during commission debates on Friday.
The four-page document pokes holes in the SACP's discussion document, stating that it “inadequately explores the effect of urban and rural voter activation on the SACP’s independent electoral contestation and does not sufficiently draw lessons from international experiences of communist parties contesting elections”.
It states that the 15th national congress resolution to contest elections has sharpened contradictions within and outside the party.
It adds that these contradictions must be managed ideologically and strategically, including through a special extended augmented central committee.
“The resolution risks derailing the working-class revolution if not approached dialectically and with ideological clarity.”
The document states that the current state of the party’s organisational, political and ideological capacity, coupled with the broader weaknesses of the working-class movement, necessitates exploring a Left Popular Front (LPF) as the most viable vehicle to unite the working class.
Mapaila delivered the political report on Thursday, launching a scathing attack on the ANC while declaring that the party would contest the 2026 elections after the ANC failed to reconfigure the alliance while entering into government with the DA.
The alternative discussion document also states the SACP must “avoid the tendency of reinventing the wheel and abandoning the continuity of its established thinking and programmes, which the current resolution fails to uphold”.
“Propaganda and counter-narratives that might be waged against the party during independent contestation are insufficiently addressed. Nowhere has Congress been informed about what has been done to build an LPF and a powerful socialist movement, as resolved by the 15th National Congress. This appraisal is critical as a foundation for moving forward.”
The document also digs in on Mapaila stating that resolutions he has proposed in the political report as a response to the challenges the party is facing, lean towards a narrow electoralist response.
The document also states that Mapaila's approach stands in contradiction to the resolution of the 12th Congress, which noted that electoral politics are an important but not exclusive terrain for contesting state power.
“The resolution on state and popular power should be rooted in the party’s historic ideological debates, such as those held at the 1990 Congress and the context of earlier resolutions post-1994. There has been a vulgarisation of earlier resolutions, reducing their revolutionary context and using them as tools of division rather than unity. The existence of any Communist Party is inherently tied to achieving state power through revolutionary means, which must be based on concrete revolutionary indicators rather than spontaneous acts or bourgeois parliamentarianism.”
It proposes that the party must resolve to exhaust all avenues of engagement with the ANC to secure a commitment to reconfiguring the alliance, while simultaneously building an LPF as a complementary strategy to support and enhance the reconfiguration process.
It states that if efforts to reconfigure the alliance prove unsuccessful, the SACP must proceed with establishing an LPF to contest elections independently.
“This approach should be guided by concrete evidence gathered from lower structures and must take into account the specific dynamics of both rural and urban contexts.”
The document said the SACP must require branches and districts seeking to contest elections to secure endorsements through questionnaires signed by at least 10% of community members within all the voting districts of the ward.
It added that these efforts must be rooted in active community programmes such as health, education, food security and crime prevention, and public employment programmes.
The document also makes a proposal that the SACP must guard against opportunistic elements by implementing rigorous screening processes for SACP candidates.
“We mandate the central committee to develop modalities for contesting elections as necessary, based on prevailing conditions and taking into account the party’s resources and capacity,” it added.
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