SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila says members who belong to both the SACP and ANC are free to choose which party they campaign for ahead of the elections and will not face disciplinary action if they support the ANC.
Speaking on 702, Mapaila said the SACP had already considered the issue of dual membership before the ANC announced that members would have to choose which party they campaigned for.
He said the SACP had taken a different approach by allowing members to make their own decisions, while describing the ANC’s public announcement as unhelpful.
Mapaila said the SACP had dealt with the matter in a comradely manner and had written to the ANC before the announcement, but decided to publish the letter because previous discussions had not always been communicated to the wider NEC.
“We decided to release that in a general statement, where we indicated that those members who feel conflicted have the right to continue and campaign for the ANC.”
Mapaila criticised the ANC’s announcement, saying it was presented as a punishment against communists.
”They made it sound like it’s a punishment when they announced it, that they are dealing with a communist. And of course, that’s a huge mistake,” he said.
He said the apartheid government had attempted to suppress the SACP but failed to eliminate the party.
“The apartheid regime failed to do that. They actually banned us by law. And here we are, we’re still existing. Where is the Nationalist Party? It’s gone,” Mapaila said.
Mapaila said SACP members who wanted to campaign for the ANC would be allowed to do so, while those who wanted to campaign for the SACP would continue to support the party’s electoral campaign.
“Our members will continue to campaign for the SACP, and those that have informed us that they won’t be able to do it for us, then they will do it for the ANC,” he said.
The SACP leader confirmed that some senior party members serving in government, including ministers Blade Nzimande and Buti Manamela, as well as Deputy Minister David Masondo and others, would be able to campaign for the ANC.
Mapaila said the party’s position was that there was no basis for these members to leave their government deployments because of their campaign choices.
“It would be awkward for Buti and Blade and Massondo and others to campaign against the ANC. That’s why we cleared that for them, to say, no, go ahead and campaign for the ANC,” he said.
The comments come amid growing tensions between the ANC and SACP over the future of their alliance, with the SACP preparing to contest elections independently while maintaining that the alliance has not ended.
Mapaila said the alliance remained important because it was built around shared struggles beyond elections, including the fight against apartheid and economic inequality.
“The alliance was not founded on the basis of elections. So it was founded on the strategic problems facing the people, and that we needed to confront those problems together,” he said.
However, Mapaila acknowledged that relations between the two parties had become strained, particularly over disagreements about economic policy and the government’s approach to transformation.
He said the SACP believed the ANC had failed to transform the economy in favour of poor and working-class South Africans.
“We have had an economy, for instance, that favours the rich, as opposed to the majority of the people who are poor. The people are struggling to survive. The cost of living has gone so high,” Mapaila said.
He said these economic disagreements remained a major source of tension within the alliance.
“The source of the tensions inside the alliance is that question of the economy,” Mapaila said.
