The SACP is going to contest future elections on its own.
However, the communists are not pulling out of the ANC-led tripartite alliance just yet.
The SACP is now going to work on modalities about how its decision to vie for electoral support will be implemented while it remains in alliance with the governing party.
Party secretary-general Blade Nzimande, who announced the move during his closing address at the 14th SACP congress in Boksburg yesterday, said the party would work on a roadmap that would sketch how and which elections it would contest.
The roadmap will then be presented to the party's augmented central committee in December.
If the SACP implements its decision to go it alone, this will have implications for members who are also card-carrying members of the ANC.
This means in effect that communist MPs would go to parliament on an SACP ticket rather than being accommodated on the ANC list.
Such an eventuality would give SACP-aligned MPs more independence from the ANC when it comes to voting on issues in the National Assembly, especially ones on which the alliance partners are split.
The SACP first resolved to run for elections in 2007. This had not been implemented when President Jacob Zuma defeated Thabo Mbeki in Polokwane, said Nzimande.
Now, the SACP has resolved to mobilise workers and other "progressive forces" to form a popular front.
This means the SACP plans to form a movement with Cosatu that will campaign independently from the ANC.
By remaining in the tripartite alliance, however, the SACP will not campaign against the ANC.
But this does mean that the ANC will lose some of its electioneering muscle.
Nzimande said in an interview with the Sunday Times that dual membership could come under review.
Party records show that 135521 of the SACP's 284554 members are also card-carrying members of the ANC.
"Dual membership has always been a helpful and a powerful tool, but it is not a permanent arrangement.
"We may need to review, that maybe dual membership needs to come to an end. We are not saying it should, but everything now must be up for review. There is nothing that must be cast in stone," he said.
Nzimande told delegates at the congress yesterday that his party was "deeply concerned" about the alliance and its future.
"While the alliance remains strategic, the manner in which it functions is outdated.
"The alliance mode of operation is incapable of holding together the alliance any further. If the modus operandi of the alliance does not change, the alliance will inevitably disintegrate with serious consequences," Nzimande said.
Mpumalanga, the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and North West pushed for the SACP resolution to contest elections.
The SACP also wants to gauge whether Cosatu would break away with it.
Themba Mthembu, SACP secretary in KwaZulu-Natal, said the party had taken a decision to contest elections in 2007 already.
In the Free State, the SACP has cut ties with the ANC, citing the leadership of provincial chairman Ace Magashule.
Tensions between the SACP and the ANC in North West were exacerbated by the dismissal of communist leader Madoda Sambatha as MEC for public works and roads.
Sambatha told the Sunday Times his province had resolved that the SACP should contest elections on its own "but within a reconfigured alliance".
He said the SACP had set up a state power commission in 2007, proposing that the party run in elections.
Options proposed included the SACP contesting elections in an equal-party alliance or independently, and thereafter forming coalitions with other parties.
Sambatha said North West was in favour of the first option...