ANC, SACP rift to top Special NEC meeting agenda

FILE| African National Congress (ANC) leader Cyril Ramaphosa addresses a party event.

The deteriorating relationship between the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) will
top the agenda of the former governing party’s long-standing Special National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Friday afternoon.

This follows the SACP’s decision to contest local government elections independently.

The shift reflects the Communist Party’s perceived exclusion and long-standing frustration with the ANC’s failure to reconfigure the alliance.

The tripartite alliance comprising the ANC, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the SACP is currently facing one of its most critical periods, with many viewing it as a make-or-break juncture due to some differences.

The top brass of the ANC will once and for all decide on how to deal with the SACP, which is contesting the ANC.

There is also a serious debate on whether SACP members should continue holding dual membership, with some arguing that party candidates should not be allowed to act as both communists and ANC government members.

Political pundits have warned that if not properly handled, Friday’s meeting could signal the beginning of the end of the over 100-year-old relationship, which was formalised after 1990 following the unbanning of the liberation movements.