SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila during the party’s fifth special national congress at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni.Picture: Itumeleng English/Independent Newspapers
THE SACP this week railed against weak leadership in the ANC and the decision to establish the government of national unity (GNU) as it prepares to contest the 2026 local government elections on its own.
SACP held its fifth special national congress at the Birchwood Hotel in Ekurhuleni, where it was at pains to explain several contradictions in the tripartite alliance post the May 29 national and provincial elections at which its ally, the ANC, suffered significant losses.
SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila put it bluntly, while delivering his political report, stating that the organisation had been abused in the tripartite alliance.
“We are not leaving the relationship (alliance), but we are freeing ourselves from the abuse. We will now engage independently as an organisation,” he told hundreds of delegates.
Mapaila cited the example of SACP Mpumalanga provincial chairperson and finance MEC Bonakele Majuba, who survived attempts to remove him after Lucky Mbuyane’s election as SACP Mpumalanga provincial secretary.
Majuba was provincial secretary before Mbuyane was elected in December 2022.
Mapaila said Majuba was informed by the ANC that he would be removed as education MEC, a position he held before the May 29 national and provincial elections, following Mbuyane’s election.
However, according to Mapaila, Mbuyane refused, saying he recognised Majuba as his leader.
“This is the level of disrespect we have gone through in this relationship,” he said, adding that the ANC could not trust Mbuyane enough to deploy him to the provincial executive because he is a member of the SACP.
This is despite Mbuyane having worked for the ANC for decades and even serving as its head of political education, according to Mapaila.
“It’s not damaging the movement, it’s asserting ourselves,” he explained.
Mapaila continued: “We have no intention of weakening the ANC, if anything, our task is to strengthen it and not weaken it.”
He also warned SACP members that the road ahead was unlikely to be smooth.
“We have to prepare ourselves for internal reaction from the movement, some of the forces have began to threaten our comrades deployed in their own right as ANC leaders that if you take this decision you know that you are gone,” Mapaila explained.
On the ANC’s worst electoral performance since 1994, the SACP believes the governing party’s loss of its majority highlighted two things – “a deeply worrying weakening subjective factor, on the one hand, and the objective material conditions of the working class.”
“We have a weak leadership at a point when the living conditions of the masses have worsened,” Mapaila said, explaining that the electoral setback was not unexpected.
He added: “This is the task of the entire revolutionary leadership, it’s not a blame [game] but it is to say when you are a liberation movement occupying political office and exercising political power you ought to exercise it effectively for the interest of the people.”
Mapaila said the ANC needs to understand that it is declining but was refusing because of the arrogance of leadership.
He likened the GNU as having counter-revolutionary forces hijacking the national democratic revolution “right under our noses”.
According to Mapaila, when DA leaders speak in public, ANC leaders follow with action, which he said was worrying.
“It should not happen. We can’t take decisions on the basis of guidelines from our enemies,” he said.
Mapaila praised Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi for resisting attempts to force the province’s ANC, which he leads, to include the DA in the government of provincial unity.
He said Lesufi was suffering because he is a fully-paid member of the SACP, and instructed the organisation’s structures in Gauteng to defend him and his administration and refuse the collaboration with the DA.
Mapaila said Lesufi had proven that a government can set be up a government without the DA.
Throughout the four-day gathering, delegates sang “asiyifun’iGNU (we don’t want the GNU)”.
ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile committed the party to continue fighting for the alliance’s unity despite the SACP’s move to contest the 2026 municipal polls.
He said the ANC will never betray people especially the poor and the working class and needed to take steps to rebuild its structures at all levels as well as invest in the process of recovery.
Meanwhile, Mashatile also acceded to calls for an inquest to the assassination of Struggle icon Chris Hani by his family and the SACP.
“That inquest will be done because it’s also the request of the family. It doesn’t matter that he is gone, the inquest must be done because we want to get to the truth of where did the decision get taken to murder Comrade Chris Hani.
The family wants closure and that inquest is going to do exactly that, so it will be done,” he promised.
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za