The public clash follows comments made by ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula during a media briefing on Tuesday dismissing the conference as an anti-ANC project rather than a genuine left-wing platform.
Mbalula confirmed that the ANC would not attend the three-day conference scheduled for May 29 to 31 at Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg.
‘This is no conference of the left’
“We say openly to our country, the ANC does not consider this convening to be a conference of the left,” Mbalula said.
He argued that the broad mix of organisations expected to participate reflected political contradictions rather than ideological unity.
“A gathering that proposes to seat chambers of commerce alongside the Bolshevik Party, the Umkhonto weSizwe alongside Azapo, business formations alongside trade unions is not a left formation in any received meaning of the term,” Mbalula said.
Mbalula further suggested that the conference was driven largely by opposition to the ANC, saying the party viewed it as “merely a project of people coming together to discuss various issues in general”.
‘ANC offered five-minute slot’
He also revealed that the ANC had only been invited to speak for five minutes at the conference and said the governing party would instead seek direct engagement with the SACP through alliance structures.
In the strongly worded response the SACP accused the ANC of trying to delegitimise independent political engagement and reducing all political discussion to whether it supports or opposes the ANC and the government of national unity (GNU).
“The ANC’s appetite to castigate citizens, mostly working-class people, for convening a conference to discuss critical national issues in the context of a reality that is increasingly unbearable for the most vulnerable, is distasteful,” the SACP said.
The communist party argued that the ANC’s response reflected an “inward-looking and self-glorifying tendency” within sections of its leadership.
ANC-SACP clash
According to the SACP, the ANC appeared unable to imagine political debate outside the framework of affirming or criticising the ANC itself.
“The ANC does not appear in this instance to imagine a political discourse that could take shape in the South African political ecosystem except where it either affirms it or contradicts it and its GNU government,” the party said.
The SACP also rejected ANC criticism over the participation of organisations such as the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry, insisting that informal traders, township businesses and cooperatives formed part of the broader working class.
The party argued that these formations were themselves victims of monopoly capital, exclusion and economic hardship.
The growing tensions come amid worsening relations between the ANC and SACP following the communist party’s decision to contest elections independently while remaining part of the tripartite alliance.
‘Alliance still intact’
Despite his outright rejection of them, Mbalula insisted the alliance remained intact.
“The alliance has stood the test of time. The alliance has stood the test of personalities,” he said.
The SACP, however, warned that alliance unity could not come at the expense of silence on unemployment, austerity, inequality and what it described as a growing “rightward drift” in national politics.
The increasingly public fallout between the ANC and SACP is expected to intensify debate about the future of the alliance and the direction of left politics ahead of this year’s local government elections.
- The South African Communist Party (SACP) has hit back at the ANC after the governing party refused to participate in the upcoming conference of the left.
- In a statement issued on Wednesday, the party accused sections of the ANC leadership of becoming increasingly isolationist and disconnected from the struggles of ordinary South Africans.
- The public clash follows comments made by ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula during a media briefing on Tuesday dismissing the conference as an anti-ANC project rather than a genuine left-wing platform.
- Mbalula confirmed that the ANC would not attend the three-day conference scheduled for May 29 to 31 at Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg.
- ‘This is no conference of the left’ “We say openly to our country, the ANC does not consider this convening to be a conference of the left,” Mbalula said.
“We say openly to our country, the ANC does not consider this convening to be a conference of the left,”
He argued that the broad mix of organisations expected to participate reflected political contradictions rather than ideological unity.
“A gathering that proposes to seat chambers of commerce alongside the
He also revealed that the ANC had only been invited to speak for five minutes at the conference and said the governing party would instead seek direct engagement with the SACP through alliance structures.
In the strongly worded response the SACP accused the ANC of trying to delegitimise independent political engagement and reducing all political discussion to whether it supports or opposes the ANC and the government of national unity (GNU).
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Despite his outright rejection of them,
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