THE ANC may have to work harder to secure coalition partners.
This after the South African Communist Party (SACP) made it clear that it will not bend its principles to help its long-time alliance partner stay in power.
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The Communist Party said it will not simply throw its weight behind the ANC in hung municipalities following the 2026 Local Government Elections.
Instead, the party wants its demands taken seriously before considering any coalition agreement.
The SACP, which contested the elections independently for the first time, secured 230 municipal seats nationwide.
SACP central committee member Alex Mashilo said the party did not enter the elections to campaign for the ANC or any other political organisation.
“What we were doing was to introduce a new campaign in South Africa’s election, one that was never there before.
“This is a vote for the SACP, for the workers and the poor; it is not a campaign for another political organisation, no, never. We didn’t resolve to contest elections for another political organisation.”
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Mashilo said the party won’t abandon the reasons that led it to contest the elections on its own.
“We have our historical mission, which is to achieve liberation, social emancipation and socialism. When we formed the alliance, it was because we had common objectives, but there are reasons why we contested the elections. We are not going to undermine those reasons.”
He added that the SACP was prepared to engage parties willing to negotiate in good faith, but would not enter discussions where it was expected to simply follow another party’s lead.
“We will engage those that are willing to engage with us based on good-faith negotiations. It’s not a subordination negotiation, and this is our general principle,” he said.
And the party is already spelling out what it wants changed.
Among its key demands is scrapping the tender system and ensuring government develops its own capacity to deliver services instead of constantly outsourcing work to private companies.
Mashilo said government should have the skills and resources to serve communities rather than depend on the private sector to do its job.
“We need to build a developmental state with its own capacity. We are not here to campaign only to refer our people to the private sector after we have won elections.
“The government is duty-bound to develop internal capacity to serve the people.”
Meanwhile, ANC head of elections Mdumiseni Ntuli dismissed claims that the ANC was desperate for the SACP’s support. He called Mashilo’s comments unfortunate and said the party was making assumptions about the ANC’s intentions.
“The comments are predicated on the wrong assumption that the ANC is so desperate to cling on to government in certain municipalities even where it did not do well in terms of these election results,” Ntuli said.
He added that the ANC was assessing the election outcome with an open mind and had not yet approached the SACP.
“We are very clear that we are not determined to go into power without a plan. There’s no need for them [the SACP] to be outlining certain conditions under which they can participate as yet; we have not approached them,” he said.
The SACP also accused unnamed donors of being discouraged from funding its election campaign, claiming it had to rely on members and supporters to keep its campaign going.
“There were donors who were told not to donate anything to us; they were threatened,” Mashilo said.
“As a result, we were running an unfunded campaign. We had to run the campaign from our own pockets, the little we could derive from our membership and a few Good Samaritans.”
With coalition negotiations looming in municipalities where no party secured an outright majority, the SACP’s position adds another challenge for parties hoping to secure enough support to govern.
