In its 5th Special National Congress in 2024, the SACP took a decision to actively contest all elections starting with local government elections. It is not the first time the SACP is taking this decision, it’s just that in the previous times there were conditions. These conditions included contesting elections “within or outside a reconfigured alliance”.
The 2024 congress removed all the conditions of contesting and inserted the date of the contest. The 2026 local government elections will see the SACP on the ballot again but this time contesting all the wards and voting districts. In the past years, this decision has been seen just as a threat by the party because its leaders would not want to leave the “gravy train”.
Now that everyone sees there is no going back from the decision and that secretary-general Solly Mapaila is adamant that the organisation will contest the 2026 local government elections, the tune has changed. Serious questions about the state of the alliance and the National Democratic Revolution and the implications of membership have been raised. Revolutionaries must concern themselves with the state of the alliance and the NDR and not membership of organisations.
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The ANC and the SACP are two independent organisations bound together by the National Democratic Revolution and not membership. Each of these organisations must determine who must become their members based on the character of each organisation. Membership of the organisation should not be anyone’s preoccupation in this debate. What should concern all of us is the state of the National Democratic Revolution.
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