Despite the ANC publicly suggesting the SACP should reconsider its decision to contest the 2026 local government elections, the communist party has made representation to the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) to renew its status as a registered political party.
The SACP took the step days after receiving a notice from the IEC to make representation for continued registration or be deregistered.
The SACP believes its representation for continued registration is essential to implement its decision to contest the 2026 local government elections.
When top leaders from the ANC and SACP met on Monday, the SACP had recently concluded its two-day Party Building Commission held at the weekend, where a decision was taken to reinforce its representation to the IEC to ensure the party is directly represented at the IEC's party liaison committee meetings at all levels across the country.
The SACP said it believes this will “do away with information from the IEC to political parties falling through the cracks, resulting in unnecessary delays impacting the SACP's ethical principle to comply with requirements timeously”.
Despite the bilateral meeting held on Monday with the ANC, nothing suggests the SACP will reconsider its decision.
The SACP has been at loggerheads with the ANC after it decided to enter into a government of national unity arrangement with the DA.
A joint statement issued after the bilateral meeting refers to the ANC and SACP having electoral strategy and tactics questions to consider on an ongoing basis, and this requires engagements within the full complement of the alliance.
The two parties are expected to discuss the outcomes of the meeting with the ANC national working committee and national executive committee and the SACP political bureau and central committee.
According to an insider, the SACP was adamant it would not abandon its congress decision to contest elections. However, the ANC, led by its president Cyril Ramaphosa, is said to have put up a compelling argument, with one insider claiming he told the SACP this would further hurt the alliance and weaken the national democratic movement.
The insider said the two parties further mandated that their respective secretariats, headed by ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila, would meet frequently to discuss matters relevant to the alliance.
The SACP previously expressed frustration over its waning influence in the ANC in its discussion document heading to its fifth special congress.
The SACP has been at loggerheads with the ANC after it decided to enter into a government of national unity arrangement with the DA.
“The influence of its coalition partners will more than likely be towards an even stronger adherence to key neoliberal policy prescripts, including stricter austerity, justified as a more determined push to meet in particular debt-reduction targets and notions of ‘working with’ profit-seeking capital in the hope of leveraging funds to fill an infrastructure ‘funding gap’ said to be north R1-trillion,” the document stated.
Its congress resolution to contest elections led to a call for bilateral meetings with the ANC, which was hoping the communist party would review the decision.
The two parties' joint statement said the meeting agreed to strengthen their relationship and establish a structured process to reassert the imperative of moving the national democratic revolution into a second, more radical phase.
“To this end, we agreed to set in motion a joint alliance consensus seeking democratic consultation. Convening alliance political council study sessions on economic policy, including fiscal, monetary, trade and industrial policy, as well as social policy broadly understood, is an immediate task we have proposed the bilateral and alliance secretariat should implement.
“We have agreed the alliance political council study sessions must culminate in the alliance summit this year. The agreement to set in motion joint alliance consensus-seeking democratic consultation will cover,– and thus take forward, the outcomes of our engagements on the reconfiguration and renewal of the alliance. In addition, there are questions of electoral strategy and tactics for further and ongoing consideration not only by the ANC and SACP, but equally importantly also by the entire alliance and broader movement,” the statement read.
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