SACP’s solo election run won’t hurt ANC, analyst says

The ANC should not lose sleep over the SA Communist Party’s decision to contest the 2026 local government elections separately because the party is too tiny to have any impact on its electoral support, says an expert.

Independent analyst Goodenough Mashego said the SACP faced tests, depending on its behaviour towards the ANC after the 2026 local government elections.

The tripartite alliance

He said if the party decided to split from the ANC after the election, the tripartite alliance relations would deteriorate to breaking point.

Mashego wondered whether the SACP would work with the ANC or against it following the elections, saying if it opposed the ANC in council voting, the alliance would be in jeopardy.

He also asked whether the SACP would vote with the ANC in a case of a tie in a municipal vote or oppose it.

Should the party decide not to vote with the ANC, the SACP would define itself outside of the alliance, he said.

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Council votes and alliance loyalty

“The question that the SACP must answer is who will it give its vote to in the council, where the DA or the ANC is contesting, when there is a tie? If it gives it ‘Party shouldn’t lose sleep over SACP’ to any other party except the DA or the ANC, that means the end of the tripartite alliance because you cannot be in an alliance while working to defeat one member of that alliance,” Mashego said.

If the SACP, having been voted into council, decides there is no way it would give its vote to the ANC, it means there was no point for it to remain in the tripartite alliance “because it will be so obvious that it is aligned with forces other than the ANC and the tripartite alliance”.

SACP’s limited impact on ANC

But Mashego said the communists’ contribution to the ANC’s electoral victories over the years had been negligible.

“I don’t think its contribution to the ANC victories is as big. So I don’t think 2029 is going to have an impact on the ANC because of the SACP standing alone.

“I don’t think it has made a substantial contribution to the ANC’s wins since 1994. It was useful to give the ANC direction, but I don’t think it contributed to its victories. I think it’s good that it goes out to contest on its own, as that will prove the true measure of its power.”

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