South African Communist Party

Statement on the Alliance, democratic rights and direct electoral participation in the forthcoming elections

Johannesburg, Friday, 10 April 2026:- Today marks the 33^rd year since the cold-blooded assassination of our General Secretary, Chris Hani, on 10 April 1993. Therefore, first we wish to take this opportunity to express our solidarity with the Hani family.

It is also appropriate to apologise for the wreath-laying ceremony that had to be discontinued on Wednesday, 8 April 2026, at the Thomas Nkobi Memorial Cemetery in Ekurhuleni, after interference by the municipality in an event that the family had made clear needed to remain small in order to avoid undermining the main commemoration scheduled for today in Mpumalanga Province. The family had to leave, followed by the SACP, as we have been working closely together and fully understand the family’s position. All components of the movement and government should respect the families of our martyrs.

The South African Communist Party (SACP) has consistently reaffirmed and continues to reaffirm its unwavering commitment to the historic Alliance as a strategic formation forged in struggle and anchored in the aspirations of the working class and the poor. This Alliance was not born out of electoral tactics or convenience. Our Alliance is far older than the elections under the universal suffrage we have achieved and first exercised in 1994 in South Africa. Ours is, in fact, the Alliance that fought for the right of every adult to vote and to stand for all bodies that make laws and govern our country, not excluding the Communist Party, as clearly set out in the Freedom Charter.

Ours is an Alliance of independent formations and was never founded or built to subordinate the independence of any of its partners, nor to dilute their historic missions or postpone any part of them. Each component entered the Alliance on the basis of its own organisational integrity and independence to pursue the National Democratic Revolution, as what brought us together, as the intersection or shared part of our respective historical missions.

The Alliance emerged from decades of united resistance against colonial and apartheid oppression. It was forged in the crucible of struggle against the merciless expropriation and exploitation of the oppressed. It arose from a shared determination to secure freedom, equality and a better life for all and to place the wealth of the country in the hands of its people.

This historic foundation defines its character. It is a site of struggle, not conformity. It requires active engagement, not passive alignment. Its strength lies in the principled unity of independent formations, each advancing its mandate while contributing to a common transformative objective. It is in this spirit that the Communist Party recalls the enduring words of Chris Hani, who cautioned that the Alliance must never be treated as a “holy cow”. As Hani has said, the Alliance is a living organism, shaped by struggle, open to change and must be accountable to the people it serves. Its vitality depends on the active participation of the masses and on the willingness of its components to renew and strengthen it in line with changing conditions. To this end, we have all agreed on the need for its reconfiguration.

Over a sustained period, the SACP has consistently advanced the necessity of reconfiguring the Alliance so that it can more effectively drive transformation. This has included engagement on common positions and participation in collective processes. However, there has been no meaningful implementation. This stagnation has contributed to the weakening of the transformative capacity required to confront the deep crises facing our country, including mass unemployment, inequality, poverty, the continued dominance of monopoly capital and, over the past decades, also the rise and dominance of the reformist ideology of neo-liberalism in the economic space.

The SACP has demonstrated its commitment to the Alliance not only in words but in practice. For more than 30 years since 1994, the Communist Party chose to not exercise its right to contest elections in its own name. Instead, the Communist Party mobilised support for the African National Congress (ANC), campaigned for it and called on the working class and the poor to vote for it. No other political organisation in South Africa has shown this level of sustained and selfless support for another. Not even the Communist Party itself has ever received such consistent, sustained and selfless support from any political organisation, both inside and outside the Alliance, or reciprocity.

The resolution by the SACP to contest elections directly, adopted in July 2017 by its 14^th National Congress, reaffirmed with amendments by the Fourth Special National Congress in December 2019 and the 15^th National Congress in July 2022, but postponed and therefore not implemented in May 2024 due to the situation that prevailed at the time, and once again reaffirmed with amendments by the Fifth Special National Congress in December 2024, must therefore be understood in its proper context. We have made it clear that the resolution is in no way directed against the ANC, which we continue to consider and treat as our long-standing ally.

In the same vein, we made it clear that the resolution does not constitute a break with the Alliance. On the contrary, in adopting it, we reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to the Alliance and consciously anchored the resolution within and initially locked its implementation within the process of Alliance reconfiguration, in the expectation that reconfiguration engagements would yield meaningful and positive outcomes – not for the SACP but for the working class at large, the majority of the people. The implementation of the resolution is the exercise of a democratic right that belongs to all, which we fought for, as affirmed in the Freedom Charter and guaranteed in the Constitution of our hard-won democratic republic.

This right to contest elections directly was consciously reserved by the SACP for over 30 years in favour of campaigning and voting for the ANC. The current decision reflects changing conditions and the need to intensify the struggle on all fronts, including the electoral terrain. It seeks to give voice to sections of the working class and the poor who are increasingly disillusioned, abstaining from voting or turning to other formations, resulting in the decline that the ANC has seen despite Alliance support, all in the absence of a reconfigured Alliance or a clear alternative rooted in their interests: a radical economic and broader social transformation and development programme to move the National Democratic Revolution on to a second phase.

The Alliance should not avoid discussing difficult internal issues. We have raised several critical matters without receiving an appropriate response from the ANC. For instance, how to prevent the loss of working-class votes to reactionary forces and how to redirect abstention votes towards progressive forces that share the transformation agenda of change, the National Democratic Revolution.

We have also raised how to work as allies in a coordinated form without harming the unity of the Alliance and the people and how to address the disproportionate allocation of proportional vote seats in the context of continuous low voter turnout within our support base. Instead, the ANC has ignored addressing concerns within the framework of Alliance consultative engagements and joint processes. It has also instead adopted and maintained the prohibitive view that the SACP must not contest elections, followed by unprincipled and problematic threats by some to SACP members who hold positions in government, without showing regard for the far-reaching implications.

The SACP rejects, with the contempt it deserves, the new tendency of harassment and intimidation of SACP members by some senior and junior leaders of the ANC, and we believe their conduct does not reflect its revolutionary fibre. Their divisive rhetoric contradicts the unity of the Alliance and reflects a worrying misunderstanding of dual membership and the importance of the Alliance.

For the record, the SACP does not seek disparate engagement in any arrangement at the expense of the people, the majority of whom are working class, but is extremely concerned about the material conditions of their lives. We are equally cognisant that none of the Alliance partners own the National Democratic Revolution or its basic programme, the Freedom Charter.

Direct electoral participation by the SACP while maintaining its commitment to the Alliance and its reconfiguration is therefore a continuation of the struggle through new options in upholding ideological, political, organisational and strategic independence. It is aimed at deepening democracy, strengthening working-class agency and advancing the transformation of society in line with the objectives of the National Democratic Revolution, in its interrelationship with and as the most direct route to socialism in our country’s historical conditions.

In fact, the absence of a direct pursuit of the interrelationship between the National Democratic Revolution and the struggle for socialism through campaigning on the electoral front has had a compromising effect on the socialist historical mission. This has limited the advancement of transformative and developmental measures in the battle of ideas by muting the active expression of scientific socialist perspectives and clear alternatives to what others advance in exercising their democratic right to freedom of expression, both in elections and within the legislative organs of the state.

In the absence of the reconfiguration of the Alliance, and within the continuous national dialogue that takes place in municipal councils, provincial legislatures, the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces, the voice of the Communist Party is not directly heard. Those who follow these platforms are exposed to the positions of the ANC and other parties but not to the distinct and independent perspective of the Communist Party: which the Party has to express freely and openly on all fronts of the struggle in the interests of the working class in pursuit of the interrelationship between the National Democratic Revolution and socialism. The resolution to correct this compromising absence does not negate the strategic character of the Alliance, which remains distinct from narrow electoralist arrangements.

The Communist Party has also reaffirmed the principle and practice of dual membership and dual leadership within the Alliance. These have historically enabled all of us to work among the masses, contribute to broader formations and advance progressive objectives, mutually influencing each other in fraternal ways. However, dual membership and leadership participation have never meant subordination or loss of independence. The SACP, like all Alliance partners, retains its own programme, discipline and strategic orientation, which it has to advance in all sites of struggle.

In this context, the Communist Party maintains a principled and fraternal posture towards the ANC as a strategic ally, committed to common national revolutionary objectives, including those summarised eloquently by the ANC in its first Strategy and Tactics document adopted in Morogoro, Tanzania, in 1969, when it said:

“Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a very real way bound up with economic emancipation. We have suffered more than just national humiliation. Our people are deprived of their due in the country's wealth; their skills have been suppressed and poverty and starvation has been their life experience. The correction of these centuries-old economic injustices lies at the very core of our national aspirations. We do not understand the complexities which will face a people's government during the transformation period nor the enormity of the problems of meeting economic needs of the mass of the oppressed people. But one thing is certain – in our land this cannot be effectively tackled unless the basic wealth and the basic resources are at the disposal of the people as a whole and are not manipulated by sections or individuals be they White or Black.”

At the same time, it will continue to oppose policies and tendencies that entrench inequality, weaken the working class and delay structural transformation. This is not a personal contest but a necessary struggle over the direction of policy and the future of our country.

The SACP remains committed to unity in action, disciplined engagement and constructive relations within the Alliance. It rejects both unprincipled accommodation that dilutes transformative objectives and sectarian approaches that undermine unity. The aim is to strengthen the collective capacity of the Alliance to serve the people better.

South Africa stands at a critical juncture. The challenges facing the workers and poor demand clarity of purpose, courage in action and renewed commitment to democratic, national-revolutionary transformation and development. The SACP will continue to play its role as an independent, organised voice of the working class, working both within the Alliance and in the broader terrain of struggle to advance the aspirations of our people.

The Alliance must be renewed and reconfigured – as we have agreed in the common Alliance reconfiguration document “Towards a Reconfigured Alliance: A joint Reconfiguration Platform” that we drafted and adopted together in 2019. The struggle must be deepened. The people must be placed at the centre of all efforts to build a just, democratic and transformed South Africa in a tangible way because freedom cannot be an abstract item with no material effect on the millions of people who still endure hardship under economic exploitation and the crises of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

The SACP will, as a demonstration of its commitment to the Alliance, allow its members who hold high-profile ANC positions compared to the Party itself to freely and openly continue campaigning for the ANC. This approach reflects a fraternal innovation of the principle of dual membership and dual leadership and is grounded in the need to foster unity. The Communist Party does not view the ANC as an opposition, particularly given its shared commitment to the National Democratic Revolution, within which we are interested in seeing the ANC give full effect to the “R” for revolution in the NDR – the National Democratic Revolution. This position is not intended to undermine the organisational independence of the Communist Party but to strengthen fraternal cooperation within the Alliance while maintaining clear ideological and political clarity.

Members in such positions are expected to act with discipline, uphold constitutional guidelines, and ensure that their public engagement advances working-class interests and the broader objectives of the National Democratic Revolution without compromising the SACP’s programme or strategic independence. There are other principles governing this provision and other categories of members which the SACP has discussed internally and will share with its allies at joint meetings as part of fostering unity within the Alliance as a national-revolutionary front rather than a unitary organisation in which one partner is independent while others function as subordinate structures.

The SACP remains committed to engagement with all its allies and within the Alliance in its entirety, guided by the principle that the National Democratic Revolution is not about this or that individual or organisation but about all of us and, most importantly, the people at large, of whom the majority are the working class.

In May 2024, we campaigned for and voted for the ANC, and the effect of those votes will last until the next national and provincial elections are over in 2029, just as the effect of the votes we cast and canvassed for the ANC in the 2021 local government elections will remain until the next local government elections are over. In this regard, the votes we have cast and canvassed for the ANC and the outcomes of these elections do not belong to any single Alliance partner to the exclusion of others. We reaffirm our commitment to unity through the votes we have cast and canvassed for the ANC and call for a shared understanding of the far-reaching implications of any attempt by anyone to privatise the outcome of elections or to act unilaterally while benefiting from the collective efforts and votes we have jointly cast and secured.

We wish to take this opportunity to also provide a draft discussion document we have engaged on with the leadership of the ANC but which it abandoned as a primary consideration. We have also proposed direct consultative meetings between the Politburo of the SACP and the National Working Committee of the ANC, as well as between the Central Committee of the SACP and the National Executive Committee of the ANC, without success. This must be understood in the context where the Alliance has not held a single summit since 2015 and has not even met in a structured manner to discuss the loss of votes in the May 2024 elections, the state of the National Democratic Revolution and to chart the way forward. There has also been no Alliance meeting to consult on the content and direction of the medium-term development plan after the May 2024 elections, despite our proposals for these meetings.

The SACP reaffirms its commitment for all in our country and the world at large to know that it does not adopt resolutions only to throw them under the bus or discard them conveniently while others uncompromisingly stick to theirs. This is a matter of fundamental principle. The SACP will implement all its resolutions, including the resolution to contest elections directly, while maintaining its commitment to the Alliance that it has dedicated itself to build over many years selflessly.