SACP draws line in sand over coalition support for struggling ANC - IOL
The SA Communist Party (SACP) said no political party, including its tripartite alliance partner the ANC, can take the party’s support for granted in hung municipalities as coalition talks gather pace.
SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila drew a hard line in the sand on Friday, saying any cooperation would have to be based on shared priorities and a commitment to improving the lives of struggling communities.
With 89% of the national vote counted, the country is facing an unprecedented local governance stalemate with 102 councils confirmed hung, while the ANC sits battered at 31.65% with 2,455 seats and the independently run SACP holds 152 seats with 2.46% of the national tally.
Engaging media on the bustling floor of the national Results Operations Centre in Midrand, Mapaila insisted that any council-level marriage would depend strictly on common socio-economic ground and an uncompromising focus on impoverished working-class communities.
“There is no automatic support for any single party,” Mapaila warned.
This expose deep fissures in the historic alliance at a critical moment when the ANC desperately needs every available seat to rescue its grip on power in fractured municipalities where it failed to win an outright majority.
The warning directly contradicts ANC deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane, who claimed on Thursday that the governing party would naturally lean on the SACP to form stable administrations.
Mapaila revealed that the SACP will immediately convene a summit with various left-wing formations that contested the local government elections to hammer out a unified bloc and shared political battle plan.
The strategic gathering stems from the establishment of the Council of the Left, which handed the SACP a one-year mandate to steer and coordinate grassroots socialist forces.
“The left forces primarily represent the lowest in our communities, the poorest of the poor, those that have been neglected by the democratic transition, and those that are victims of the capitalist discourse in our country,” Mapaila said.
He expressed gratitude to the voters who backed the SACP on its independent ballot run, declaring that the organisation remains steadfast in championing the dispossessed.
Mapaila made it clear that the SACP will not abandon its core red-line demands just to prop up power-hungry suitors.
Those non-negotiables include radical overhauls in local service delivery and direct participatory budgeting for marginalised communities, which he branded mandatory conditions for any coalition deal.
