The South African Communist Party (SACP) has long styled itself as the ideological conscience of the South Africa’s liberation movement, led by the ANC. Since the democratic transition of 1994, it has remained anchored in the Tripartite Alliance with the ANC and the trade-union federation COSATU. Within the Alliance, the SACP has shaped debates on economic justice, defended workers’ rights, and warned repeatedly against what it regards as a steady neoliberal drift in ANC economic policy.
For decades this arrangement allowed the party to influence policy without seeking a direct electoral mandate. Even at the height of tensions following the 1996 introduction of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki, the SACP never walked away. It denounced GEAR as a betrayal of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and of the Freedom Charter, yet ultimately chose discipline and unity over rupture. That decision reflected a belief that influence from within the Alliance outweighed the risks of isolation, even when policy differences were profound.
Today, however, the ground is shifting. The SACP has announced that it will contest the 2026 Local Government Elections (LGE) in its own name. This is a historic moment: a move that signals continuity of socialist ideals but a sharp organisational rupture. Whether the party can become a direct political voice of the working class or merely expose the limits of its influence outside the ANC’s long shadow, remains an open question.
A sharpened terrain: the ANC’s NEC meeting
The stakes were underscored at the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) Special Meeting of 13-15 September 2025. Emerging from that gathering, the ANC declared local government as the centrepiece of its 2026 strategy. It pledged to “revive local government” by improving municipal service delivery, strengthening governance, and tightening accountability. Far from ceding ground, the ANC is doubling down on its historic base (wards, communities, and municipalities), the very terrain on which the SACP intends to challenge it.
This renewed focus comes as the ANC is embedded in a Government of National Unity (GNU) formed after the 2024 general election. Compromises with centrist GNU partners have nudged the ANC further to the right of the political centre. That shift has widened the ideological chasm with the SACP, whose left-leaning objectives remain rooted in a vision of the National Democratic Revolution and the Freedom Charter. For the SACP, the NEC’s aggressive local-government agenda presents both a political warning and a strategic invitation: the ANC will fight hard to re-establish legitimacy where it matters most.
Historic fault lines: Nationalists and Communists
These current tensions echo a much older ideological divergence inside the liberation movement. From its earliest days the ANC was a broad church of African nationalists and centre-right elements who, while willing to ally tactically with communists, never collectively embraced Marxism. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, leading communists such as Moses Kotane and J.B. Marks were key organisers, yet periodic purges and expulsions of communists underscored the nationalist leadership’s unease with socialism – which the Communists regarded as a critical phase towards a decisive advance towards communism. Figures associated with the Communist Party of South Africa were at times sidelined or expelled, and the 1950 Suppression of Communism Act forced many to work underground. Even during the armed struggle, when cooperation between the ANC and SACP was closest, the alliance was a marriage of convenience rather than ideological unity. The ANC’s core identity remained that of a nationalist movement seeking majority rule, not a party committed to a socialist state. The present rift over economic policy therefore revives a fault line that predates democracy itself.
Divergence and strategic calculus
The SACP’s influence inside the Alliance has been waning for years. Its policy critiques on privatisation, budget austerity, and market-friendly reforms have gained little traction in cabinet. With the ANC’s centrist turn now reinforced by GNU compromises, the ideological gulf is wider than ever. COSATU, at its recently concluded four-day Central Committee meeting, decided not to endorse the SACP’s electoral experiment, but rather call for the unity of the alliance in defending the National Democratic Revolution.
The SACP’s choice to keep “conditional ties” to the ANC even as it prepares to run against it, highlights its dilemma: it aspires to socialist independence but hesitates to sever the historic alliance that gave it relevance. The ANC’s NEC, meanwhile, has reminded members of the need for loyalty and discipline, hinting that dual membership may soon be incompatible with Alliance cohesion. In this light, the SACP’s attempt to straddle alliance unity and electoral autonomy looks increasingly like an unstable bridge.
That tension is hardly new. The SACP stayed in the Alliance when GEAR was introduced, despite fierce internal debate and grass-roots anger. If it would not leave then, sceptics now ask, what makes today different? The party must explain why the compromises of the 1990s could be endured, but those of the 2020s cannot?
Opportunity and competition
The ANC’s promise to revive local government offers the SACP both an opening and a formidable obstacle. On the one hand, the party can harness widespread frustration with collapsing municipalities to argue for deeper structural change: municipal ownership of key services, participatory budgeting, progressive local taxation, and stronger checks on private contractors. On the other hand, if the ANC manages even modest improvements, many voters may see little reason to shift their allegiance.
For the SACP, mere rhetoric will not suffice. It must present detailed, credible policies that connect socialist ideals to daily realities: fixing broken roads, ending water outages, and ensuring consistent refuse collection. Without such specificities, the party risks being dismissed as utopian or merely oppositional, a protest movement rather than a governing alternative.
Strategy, Alliance dynamics, and local focus
Running in the 2026 elections while clinging to Alliance membership sends mixed signals to workers burdened by unemployment, debt, and failing services. If the ANC has, in the SACP’s view, abandoned the working class, why maintain ties? This ambiguity could confuse potential supporters and blunt the party’s appeal to disaffected voters seeking clear alternatives.
The ANC’s NEC resolution reaffirmed that its own legitimacy rests squarely on effective local governance. For the SACP, this means it cannot merely contest proportional-representation seats; it must fight ward by ward, demonstrating the ability to run municipalities and deliver basic services. Entering the race without building the capacity to govern would only reinforce perceptions of idealism over practicality.
Ideological distinction and the electorate’s caution
The SACP’s Central Committee recently reaffirmed that the Freedom Charter and the National Democratic Revolution are inseparable from the advance toward socialism. It has condemned the ANC’s embrace of tight budgets, privatisation, and market-friendly reforms. Yet the ANC’s “revival” agenda speaks less of structural change than of efficiency and anti-corruption; goals that, while popular, remain within a capitalist framework.
But the South African electorate has repeatedly signalled that ideology alone is not enough. The 2019 failure of Irvin Jim’s Social Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP) remains a cautionary tale. Despite heavy backing from sections of the metalworkers’ union NUMSA and a loud anti-capitalist message, the SRWP barely registered at the polls, getting only 0.14% in the 2019 general elections. Workers preoccupied with jobs, wages, and service delivery proved reluctant to, as the political adage goes, ‘sacrifice bread and butter for the altar of ideology.’
The SACP must take this lesson seriously. To stand out it needs more than slogans; it must show how socialist policies will improve daily life and protect livelihoods, not merely promise a distant utopia.
Ground game and grassroots credibility
The SACP’s historical influence has always depended on strong local roots. Its most effective periods were those when it was embedded in civic movements, worker forums, and community struggles, not merely in ANC boardrooms. Today that infrastructure is weak.
Recent by-elections highlight the challenge. In Polokwane’s Ward 13, the party managed less than one percent of the vote, revealing both limited recognition and organisational fragility. Winning municipalities will require more than manifestos; it demands ward-level structures, capable councillors, and a visible capacity to deliver services. The party must invest in street committees, worker forums, and civic alliances, especially in townships and informal settlements where service failures are most acute.
Resources compound the problem. Campaign funding, media exposure, and administrative capacity all lag far behind the ANC’s. If the SACP contests widely but performs poorly, it risks eroding the moral authority that has allowed it to punch above its weight inside the Alliance.
Risks and possible outcomes
Several scenarios are plausible. Should the ANC’s revival agenda falter and service-delivery failures persist, the SACP could capitalise on public discontent and present itself as a credible alternative. But if the governing party achieves even modest improvements, it will be difficult for the Communists to persuade voters that switching allegiances is worth the risk.
Backlash from Alliance partners is also inevitable. ANC-aligned municipalities may treat SACP candidates as adversaries, while COSATU faces internal tensions over whether to support an independent SACP. The party must therefore weigh potential electoral gains against the risk of alienating allies and fracturing labour solidarity.
Ultimately the SACP’s decision is more than a tactical experiment; it is a wager on whether a party long defined by alliance politics can forge an independent identity. Success will require ideological clarity, a persuasive policy platform, and above all, organisation at the grassroots.
The 2026 local elections will not only count ballots; they will measure whether the SACP can convert decades of critique into tangible political agency. If the party can pair a principled socialist vision with practical municipal governance, it may finally step out of the ANC’s shadow. If not, its bold gamble will register as little more than symbolic protest, confirming its historic role as critic rather than contender.
