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Daily Maverick
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
How would Mandela tackle SA's problems today if he were in Ramaphosa's shoes?
In 2023 South African author Jonny Steinberg published a book on former South African president Nelson Mandela and his tumultuous marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. To mark the 107th anniversary of Mandela's birth, Steinberg wrote the following. As Nelson Mandela's birthday approaches, I find that without any conscious bidding my mind has embarked on a thought experiment: If Mandela were in Cyril Ramaphosa's shoes now, if he were president of South Africa facing a truly shocking crisis in the criminal justice system, what would he do? It's a silly experiment, I know, both because he isn't here, and because people, especially unusual people like Nelson Mandela, tend to surprise you. But I can't help it, and it is partly Ramaphosa's fault. He is forever invoking Mandela's name, forever claiming to channel his spirit. Mandela, he says ad nauseum, was the world's great consensus builder; his ship would not sail until all had consented to board. This could not be further from the truth. Mandela was a patrician leader, at times even a draconian leader, who steamrolled dissent when he thought it necessary. And he led at a time when it was necessary. During the transition to democracy, he ended the armed struggle in the face of fierce opposition from across the democratic movement. He abandoned nationalisation when the trade union movement and South African Communist Party screamed that he had sold out. He went into these battles fiercely. He was rude, arrogant, insulting. He interrupted people when they were speaking. He was a hard man who played a hard game; he'd been like that all his life. I would hazard a guess that in the midst of the crisis Ramaphosa is facing, Mandela's most patrician qualities would have come out. He'd be firing people. He'd be insulting them in public speeches. He would put on that forbidding face of his, his lips in a downturned grimace. Would it have worked? He managed to drag a volatile movement through a nightmarishly difficult transition to democracy. Could he have dragged it out of the quagmire of criminalisation and violence it finds itself in now? Who knows? What's left of the African National Congress may be too far gone for that. What he would not do, I am sure, is tepidly announce yet another commission of inquiry. DM
The Citizen
02-07-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
SACP sticks to its guns on going it alone in polls
The SACP says corruption, privatisation, and governance decay forced its move to contest elections independently. Supporters of the South African Communist Party march through Braamfontein against gender-based violence, 21 August 2022. Picture: Michel Bega Amid swelling criticism from the ANC leadership, the South African Communist Party (SACP) will not reverse its decision to participate independently in the forthcoming local government elections, it says. The party, which has been in a long-term alliance with the ANC and Congress of SA Trade Unions, believes contesting for state power is necessary in light of the ANC's continued implementation of the neoliberal agenda. The party described its decision as a 'tactical shift in our electoral strategy', saying it realised that, over time, the gains of millions of people had increasingly been undermined by the neoliberal policies of the ANC. Tactical shift in SACP's electoral strategy The party cited corporate class capture of key state positions or sections by office bearers, public representatives, public sector officials and board members in public entities, among others. It objected to outsourcing or privatisation of public sector functions, abuse of state tenders, corruption, governance decay and failure to serve the people in favour of public interests. ALSO READ: Ramaphosa acted 'justifiably' in removing Whitfield, says SACP 'A direct electoral contest is not a break from our strategic goals but a tactical reconfiguration of our electoral strategy,' the party said. It noted that 'forming part of the alliance was never meant to compromise the SACP's independence and mission of implementing the national democratic revolution and socialism. 'All alliance partners are independent formations – and none is part of the alliance to postpone or compromise its independence and historical mission. Shared strategic objectives 'We have come together as allies to pursue our shared strategic objectives,' the party said. Political analyst George Tsibani said the tone of the SACP statement diverged from its characteristic ideology and tone. ALSO READ: SACP plans solo run in 2026 as ANC faces new threat 'A quintessential Marxist-Leninist organisation, the SACP's foundational principles revolve around class struggle and the pivotal role of the working class in achieving socialism. The text in question lacks this distinct tone,' Tsibani said. He said the party was divorcing itself from its main task in the national democratic revolution. The SACP's primary focus areas encompass gender-based violence, community mobilisation and radical policy changes. In stark contrast, the given text concentrates on regime change, black fashionable political parties and the role of the DA, he added. Voting for the SACP would be tantamount to donating votes to the DA. Vote for regime change 'A vote for the SACP is a vote for regime change,' Tsibani said. The party is coming under attack from the ANC top brass for the decision it formalised at its special national congress last year. ALSO READ: SACP's solo election run won't hurt ANC, analyst says Among critics was ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe, a former SACP national chair. He said by contesting the election separately, the party had deviated from the 'black republic thesis' that stated there would not be socialism in SA while the black majority were still under oppression. 'Black republic thesis' He said it was a common view of all SACP leaders that the party must not neglect the ANC's mass base. If the party moved away from that mass base, it would be giving away its own advantage. 'The SACP must be located in the mass base, the ANC, and influence it while theorising on the revolution framework and while we resolve our differences.'
The Citizen
19-06-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
Downgrading of Israeli embassy ‘right thing to do'
Lamola confirms Israel's embassy will remain downgraded due to Gaza conflict. A member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) protests outside the Embassy of Isreal in solidarity with Palestine and condemn the ongoing airstrikes in Gaza, 20 May 2021, Pretoria. Picture: Jacques Nelles There was not much happening at the Israeli embassy after International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola confirmed it would remain downgraded, following the ongoing attacks on Hamas. The downgrade was implemented as a direct response to Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian territories, Lamola said during his address to the National Council of Provinces on Tuesday. Lamola said the downgraded embassy only facilitated the normal processes of visa applications and travelling of civilians between the two countries. Downgrading Israeli embassy the right thing to do – analyst Political analyst Piet Croucamp said downgrading the embassy was the right thing to do. 'Whether we will make new enemies and reiterate old enemies like [US President] Donald Trump, [remains to be seen],' he said. ALSO READ: What Israel–Iran conflict means for South African economy 'It might not be the right time now but, politically, it was the right thing to do.' Another political analyst, Rene Oosthuizen, said the South African government's decision to downgrade the embassy was complex and reflects 'our nation's historical solidarity with the oppressed and the profound moral dilemmas of our present societies'. Issue complex and reflects SA's 'historical solidarity with the oppressed' Oosthuizen said while 'one cannot ignore the suffering of innocent civilians in any conflict, the breaking of diplomatic ties can close off avenues for mediation and humanitarian engagement'. Senior political lecturer at North-West University Benjamin Rapanyane said the move to downgrade the embassy in 2023 marked a shift in foreign policy aimed at conveying solidarity with the Palestinian people.
IOL News
10-06-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
The SACP's People's Caravan: A Flirtation with the Electorate Ahead of Local Government Polls?
SA Communist Party Secretary-General Solly Mapaila (2nd from left) at the launch of the People's Caravan initiative held at Motlhabe Village, North West Province on June 2, 2025. The question is not whether the Party can win votes, but whether it can become real, in the Marxist-Leninist sense, as a Party rooted in mass life, capable of organising, defending, and advancing the concrete interests of the working class and the poor, says the writer. Image: SACP/X Zamikhaya Maseti The South African Communist Party (SACP) has launched the People's Caravan Campaign. For the first time in recent memory, its Red Flag does not merely flutter in alliance corridors but plants itself in the dust of working-class existence. Over the weekend, I gave myself the time and the ideological quiet to study the concept document titled The People's Caravan: Going Back to the Grassroots. My cursory reading of the document revealed a theoretical looseness that undermined its ideological force. It would have stood on firmer ground, tighter, and more convincing had it been anchored in the historical documents of the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). No text emerges in isolation; every articulation is part of a longer dialectical lineage. It is precisely within this context that I juxtaposed the document, deliberately and methodically, against three seminal coordinates within the Marxist-Leninist tradition texts that have not only illuminated but actively structured the ideological scaffolding of our national liberation struggle. I want to mention these three coordinates in the following order: the ANC Strategy and Tactics Document (1969), the ANC Green Book (1979), and the SACP's Path to Power (1989). Let me begin with what must be affirmed: the People's Caravan Campaign has jolted the SACP from a deep slumber. It is visible now, not in press briefings, but in places where the class war lives, communities battered by municipal neglect and economic dispossession. One only wishes this campaign were not a seasonal flirtation with the masses in the run-up to the 2026 National Local Government Elections, only to retreat into ideological slumber once the ballots are counted. This mode of engagement must not be episodic. It must be genetically encoded into the Party's operational DNA. The concept document itself makes several compelling claims. It presents the People's Caravan Campaign as a revolutionary, mass-based programme intended to reconnect with the people and reconstitute grassroots power, that elemental force needed to advance the socialist struggle of the workers and the poor. It acknowledges, quite correctly, that electoral contests are only one terrain of class struggle. It also gestures at global Left mobilisation. Yet even in that gesture, the document renders Africa absent a Continental silence that is politically untenable. Yes, the 5th Special National Congress did refer to African developments, but only in passing. This is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Africa's contemporary currents are not peripheral; they are tectonic. Consider this: Namibia is now led by women at the highest echelons, a female President, Dr Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwa, and Deputy President, Lucia Witbooi. Botswana's political scene is rejuvenated by a young President, Duma Boko. In Senegal, it is President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, and in Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traoré stands as a revolutionary mirror to Thomas Sankara, drawing mass support and articulating a new strain of post-colonial defiance. In Mali, the military junta holds the reins of state. Video Player is loading. 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Next Stay Close ✕ Both countries, Mali and Burkina Faso are aligned with Russia, a power whose strategic relationship to African sovereignty must be rigorously analysed. What is the SACP's stance? How does a Marxist-Leninist Party position itself on these emergent formations? Does it embrace or disavow the militarised popular governments emerging across Francophone Africa? And how does it read the Russian presence, as imperial residue or as dialectical opportunity? These questions are not rhetorical. They are strategic. They belong inside the People's Caravan Campaign theoretical engine. Even in its global analysis, the document introduces strange contradictions. It suggests building alliances with COSATU, civic movements, and even faith-based organisations. Let us pause here: a Marxist-Leninist Party partnering with theological institutions? That is a line that demands ideological double-clicking. We will return to it. Still more puzzling is the near-total absence of the African National Congress (ANC) in the strategic partnership framework. That silence is not accidental. It is either an editorial lapse or a soft signal of rupture. Either way, it must be named. A second issue worthy of double-clicking. Equally ambiguous is the role of COSATU. As the Party moves toward contesting the 2026 National and Local Government Elections, what is COSATU's position? Is it aligned? Is it hesitant? And why does the Party treat COSATU as if it were the only labour federation in the country? This is factional myopia at best, and strategic suicide at worst. The SACP, if it is serious about its vanguard role, must begin to agitate for a unified working-class front, cutting across NACTU, FEDUSA, and SAFTU. One federation. One country. If the Party is to usher in the Second Stage of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), that transitional detour toward socialism, we cannot do so with a fragmented and politically anaemic working class. And if the Party is to contest elections, such a resolution must be anchored in foundational texts: the ANC's Green Book and The Path to Power. But the resolution adopted in 2024 appears unmoored from that historical logic. This disconnect is the third matter I will interrogate in greater detail. SACP activists led by Secretary-General Solly Mapaila constructing a vegetable garden as part of the People's Caravan campaign in Motlhabe Village, North West Province on June 2, 2025. Image: SACP/X The People's Caravan Programme does not move in abstraction. It travels along the neglected veins of the Republic: informal settlements, townships, rural outposts, locations evacuated by policy but saturated with pain. It is here where the Party now seeks to inscribe itself, not with empty slogans, but with presence. The politics of the People's Caravan Campaign is one of pedestrian intimacy: house visits, open-air street engagements, and listening posts that attempt to restore a culture of direct political encounters. This is a necessary departure from the Party's historical reliance on alliance theatre, where strategic importance was confused with symbolic positioning. Through the People's Caravan Campaign, the SACP is not theorising about community relevance from the lofty heights of national structures; it is testing its viability in the mud of lived experience. The question is not whether the Party can win votes, but whether it can become real, in the Marxist-Leninist sense, as a Party rooted in mass life, capable of organising, defending, and advancing the concrete interests of the working class and the poor. The Party's resolution to contest the 2026 election is not informed or anchored in any of the above documents. The ANC Green Book is very clear on the Two-Stage Theory of the Revolution. Pallo Jordan explains it very succinctly in his presentation to the Politico-Military Strategy Commission of the ANC in Lusaka. He said: "We debated the more long-term aims of our National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and the extent to which the ANC, as a national movement, should tie itself to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and publicly commit to the Socialist option." He elaborated further and stated that the ANC is not the Party. However, the support of the Socialist Order is a matter of tactical consideration. It therefore follows that the ANC acknowledges the role of the Party as the vanguard of the working class. It is therefore the SACP that must usher the South African people into the Second Stage of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as a political vanguard of the working class. The fundamental strategic and tactical questions that the SACP must answer are: Has the ANC changed its attitude towards the establishment of the socialist order? On what theoretical and ideological basis was the resolution to contest the 2026 National Government Elections taken? Is the SACP convinced that the First Stage of the National Democratic Revolution has been completed , as the ANC Green Book clearly outlines which vanguard at one stage and which on the second? How does the SACP foresee the nature and form of the Tripartite Alliance after it has contributed to the ANC's electoral downward swing, which is predicted to be at 32% nationally? The SACP must still make a convincing theoretical argument as it goes ahead with the implementation and rolling out of the People's Caravan Campaign. As I conclude, my considered view is that the outcome of the May 2024 National General Elections represents a regression and therefore, the First Stage of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is incomplete, and the ANC is at its weakest. * Zamikhaya Maseti is a Political Economy Analyst with a Magister Philosophiae (M. PHIL) in South African Politics and Political Economy from the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE), now known as the Nelson Mandela University (NMU). ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
The Citizen
04-06-2025
- Business
- The Citizen
SACP plans solo run in 2026 as ANC faces new threat
The SACP has confirmed it will contest the 2026 local elections independently, raising concerns for the ANC. Supporters of the South African Communist Party march through Braamfontein against gender-based violence, 21 August 2022. Picture: Michel Bega As the 2026 local government elections approach, the ANC is concerned about the SA Communist Party's (SACP) move to contest separately, or potentially challenge, the ANC in the upcoming elections. However, an expert believes the SACP's alliance with the ANC could prove to be an Achilles heel for the party. The ANC's transgressions could be revisited upon the small socialist party, with voters punishing it for tolerating the ANC's neoliberal policies that adversely affected the poor. SACP alliance with ANC could prove to be Achilles heel Besides, said an expert, the party may fail to amass much support like in the 2016 election – in Metsimaholo, Free State – because voters will not take it seriously. Last week, the SACP reiterated its position, taken as a resolution at its national congress in December, that it will stand alone in the local government elections. Initially, some analysts had been in doubt about the party's intention to go it alone, arguing such a move had always been on the SACP's agenda but failed to materialise as the party always changed its mind. ALSO READ: SACP's solo election run won't hurt ANC, analyst says But following SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila's reiteration of the decision, analysts said the party was not a real threat to the ANC because it lacks the numbers. Political analyst and scholar Dominic Maphaka, from NorthWest University, said the SACP resolution to contest elections alone 'will not affect the ANC'. 'An in-depth analysis of the SACP demonstrates that the party has no constituents that can affect the ANC if they stand for elections,' said Maphaka. Party doesn't have contituents that can affect the ANC 'The SACP has spent many years defocusing and demobilising itself by aligning with the ANC, which prioritises neoliberal policies.' He said the SACP's 'socialist ideological basis to draw the hearts and minds of voters will fall on deaf ears'. 'Many South Africans will not take the SACP seriously. If anything, the party would fail to amass much support,' he said. ALSO READ: EFF slams Presidency's silence around Mashatile shooting incident Coalitions worldwide have crumbled, some as far back as the 1930s in Germany, and that this continues to this day, he said. The cause was often ideological differences, including policy implementation, something that threatens South Africa's own 10-party government of national unity, he said. The party, which renewed its registration at the Electoral Commission of South Africa, described its participation in the elections as 'contesting for power'. 'Contesting for power' In preparation for its campaign, the SACP launched 'The Peoples' Red Caravan' last week. The campaign was themed 'The People's Movement for SelfReliance and Sustainability'. The observers regard the Red Caravan initiative as a final stamp in the party's position to go it alone under its Soviet-styled hammer and circle banner, plus black star banner. Some party grassroots structures have begun to prepare the media by carrying SACPspecific messages, including election T-shirts and caps, banners, and leaflets – an indicator that the stand-alone decision will not be reversed this time around. ALSO READ: Hani family slams 'imposters' allegedly pretending to be related to struggle hero Political analyst Dirk Kotzé said the history of left-wing parties in South Africa wasn't good, as they performed poorly and had minimal following. The SACP votes would come in the major urban centres and mining areas. Rather than compete with the ANC, he said, the party would compete with the EFF, which had the best record in membership and electoral performance. 'I don't think the SACP will really be able to manage nationwide local elections, which are much more demanding as they need organisational presence in each town or place where it is contesting,' said Kotzé. Votes would come in major urban centres, mining areas 'Local elections need a local organisation and I don't think the SACP has got that.' But one thing is for sure, he said, 'any poll victory for the SACP would be a loss for the ANC, which will also lose votes to other parties'.
