Durban — As the relationship between long-time allies the ANC and SACP gets increasingly strained, the KwaZulu-Natal arm of the SACP has entered the fray and slammed the ANC’s association with the DA.
After the ANC failed to retain the political throne following the May 29 elections, party president Cyril Ramaphosa went – cap in hand – to political parties and spearheaded the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU).
The cocktail of parties included the ANC’s once sworn enemy, the DA, with the party’s federal council chairperson, Helen Zille, calling the arrangement a coalition, not a GNU.
This did not go down well with many alliance partners, including the SACP and Cosatu, but the former has been the most vocal critic of the ANC’s association with the DA.
SACP provincial secretary Themba Mthembu has always maintained that any alliance by the ANC with the DA is “unholy”.
“We are against any coalition with the DA because this does not align with the values of the SACP. We will talk to our national leaders to chart a way forward as to what we will do if the ANC continues with its alliance with the DA.
Mthembu said the SACP would not hesitate to dump the ANC if it continued its alliance with the DA.
“If the ANC continues with the DA, we would be left with no option but to lean to left progressive parties in the local government elections in 2026,” said Mthembu.
He said the local SACP is lobbying national leaders to order SACP backers not to vote for the ANC if it does not dump the DA.
“As the SACP, we are against such a coalition. We are warning the ANC about the backlash from voters,” he said.
The SACP in KZN would lobby the national leadership to order its members not to campaign for the struggling ANC in the upcoming local government elections, less than 16 months away in 2026.
The party would, however, not be drawn into commenting on whether it would independently contest the elections. The SACP once contested wards in the Metsimaholo by-election in the Free State in 2017.
Hell was let loose when SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila broke ranks and publicly slammed the ANC’s alliance with the DA, dubbing the alliance “white monopoly capital”.
In a rabble-rousing gesture, Mapaila charged: “All these parties, Bosa, Rise Mzansi, the FF Plus and others, all with money from the Oppenheimers and international capital, immediately after elections we go and embrace them.”
He spoke during the party’s 103rd anniversary on Sunday in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha to mark the milestone in the city where the party was formed in 1921.
Following his stinging utterances, the ANC national working committee (NWC) is said to have called for Mapaila to be hauled over the coals by summoning him to the national executive committee (NEC), the party’s highest decision-making body.
ANC spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi defended the ANC, saying the party led the formation of the GNU to move the country forward. “Our aim is to make sure that the county moves forward.”
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) dismissed former president Jacob Zuma’s second bid to overturn the setting aside of his private prosecution against his nemesis Ramaphosa.
Zuma served Ramaphosa with a summons in 2022 for a private prosecution on charges of being an accessory after the fact to contraventions of the NPA Act in a matter involving State advocate Billy Downer.
However, the case was reviewed and set aside by a full bench of the High Court in Joburg last year.
Zuma’s legal representative, senior counsel advocate Dali Mpofu said their instructions were now to approach the Constitutional Court.
Tuesday’s proceedings have been postponed until February 6 next year.
While Ramaphosa was not in court on Tuesday, Zuma was in court accompanied by his daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla.
Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe said the ANC and DA were a deliberate ploy to block the Jacob Zuma-led uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) and Julius Malema’s EFF from forming a coalition with other parties.
“This was a clear ploy led by (president) Cyril Ramaphosa to block the MK Party and the EFF. But the alliance of the ANC and the DA is unthinkable. These parties are opposites in terms of ideologies. I don’t see what the DA has in common with the ANC,” said Seepe.
The differences in ideologies between the ANC and the DA are glaring, said Seepe.
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