ANC Youth League (ANCYL) secretary-general Tsakani Shiviti has issued a blunt call for the SACP to repair its strained relationship with the ANC, warning that continued separation from the governing party will only lead to electoral marginalisation and political embarrassment.
Speaking to Sunday World, Shiviti criticised the SACP’s recent electoral showing, pointing to its poor performance in the Limpopo by-elections as evidence that the party lacks an independent voter base outside the ANC-led alliance.
In Polokwane, the SACP secured just 1% of the vote, while in Fetakgomo Tubatse it failed to make any noticeable impact.
She said the results should serve as a reality check for the communist party as it weighs contesting future elections independently.
“They must come back home and stop embarrassing themselves,” Shiviti said.
Shiviti questioned why the SACP appeared to be distancing itself from the ANC at a time when the movement was facing its most challenging political period since 1994, despite having benefited for years from alliance arrangements, including deployment into government and state institutions.
“The SACP is behaving like a boyfriend who, when you have one foot broken, distances himself and says: You are no longer my girlfriend,” she said.
“We have always been in the tripartite alliance, the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP. Deployment into government has always been part of that arrangement.
“I grew up as a member of the SACP. This is where we were conscientised ideologically.”
“When things are going bad, when we are no longer enjoying the majority and the voter turnout, they want to run away. That is where we have a problem.”
According to Shiviti, the SACP should instead use alliance structures to ventilate grievances and work toward restoring unity, rather than positioning itself as a competitor to the ANC at the ballot box.
She insisted that the ANC, with the support of its alliance partners, still had a historic responsibility to complete the mission of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR).
“If there is any problem we are facing, we must face it together because we are partners in the revolution. We must correct ourselves together,” she said.
“If the partnership is so bad, why did they not leave when we had a majority?”
Shiviti maintained that the ANC must remain at the centre of the revolutionary project until its objectives were fulfilled.
“The ANC should lead the NDR. We have not yet achieved it, so we believe we must allow the ANC to reach a point where the NDR is achieved,” she said.
She also raised concern about calls for individuals with dual membership to choose between the ANC and the SACP, arguing that such demands risk dividing a support base built jointly over decades.
“Members of the SACP are members of the ANC. So how do you go to people and say: Vote for the SACP; do not vote for the ANC?” she asked.
“Do not divide our base now. This is the base we have built together over years.”
Despite the sharp tone of her remarks, Shiviti said she believed reconciliation between the two parties remained possible, provided there was honest engagement.
“The ANC should never stop engaging the SACP. We must find ways to fix what is broken,” she said.
Her comments come amid growing strain within the tripartite alliance, following the SACP’s decision to pursue a more independent electoral path. The SACP’s shift gained momentum after the ANC’s weakened performance in the 2024 general elections, when the party lost its outright national majority for the first time since the advent of democracy.
In the months that followed, the SACP argued that remaining confined to an alliance framework limited its ability to advance a distinct ideological programme and speak directly to working-class constituencies.
At its national conference, the SACP resolved that it would contest future elections independently, including the 2026 local government elections.
The development fuelled uncertainty about the future of the tripartite alliance. The matter was formally addressed at the ANC’s National General Council (NGC) in December 2025. While the gathering reaffirmed the importance of unity among alliance formations, it also adopted resolutions aimed at managing the new political reality created by the SACP.
Among these was a resolution that ANC members who also belong to the SACP must recuse themselves from ANC meetings and discussions dealing with election strategy, given the communist party’s intention to contest the 2026 local government elections independently.
The NGC acknowledged the complexity of maintaining alliance cohesion under these circumstances but stressed that continued engagement with alliance partners remained critical to advancing the broader goals of the liberation movement.
