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The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Free State Province (FS) held a Special Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) on a virtual platform to undertake an assessment and analysis of the 2024 national and provincial elections and consider the post elections developments in the province and nationally, as well as recent developments internationally, and their implications for the working class.

This work was informed by a political analysis report by the Provincial Secretary, an input from the SACP Central Committee members as well as a detailed elections report covering all districts in the province. In analysing the performance, the PEC was largely inward looking rather than focusing on the ANC and evaluated the work of the Party, our contribution and weaknesses encountered during the campaigns, with the intention to engage in self-correction. Beyond the numbers, the PEC considered the roots of the situation and conditions that led to the ANC obtaining a disappointing 40 per cent share of the vote nationally and slightly better over 50 per cent in the province.

On national and provincial elections, and post elections developments

The PEC noted that notwithstanding resource constraints, the Party in the province mounted a relatively modest independent and complementary electoral campaign across the districts, with better internal coordination and joint activities with the alliance. The SACP Chris Hani Red Brigades made a strong contribution and ensured the Party’s presence and visibility throughout the campaign. However, there is room for improvement on several aspects.

The PEC admitted unsatisfactory commitment by some Party leaders and the lack of active VD-based Party structures in several areas affected the reach of the Party. Except for engagements with shop stewards, there was insufficient campaigning amongst the organised workers, including within COSATU. Generally, subjective factors that influenced the poor electoral outcome include the anti-worker, anti-poor neo-liberal austerity agenda, weaknesses on service delivery, the conduct of leaders and weaker structures. Reneging on decisions such as collective bargaining agreements, COSATU and Party decisions in relation to electoral contests may have affected voter turnout. 

The PEC noted that several parties, some heavily sponsored by domestic and global capitalist forces, who were first-time participants in elections also tilted the electoral scale mainly against the ANC, with MK Party’s disruptive impact being decisively felt. 

It is undeniable that MKP and former president Zuma relied on tribal mobilisation, and used elements of populism and threats including exploiting the credentials of MK to garner support. The PEC, however, argued that to explain the MKP phenomenon by simply pointing to tribalism and popularity of JZ alone risks abandoning a thorough Marxist-Leninist enquiry necessary to understand and respond to the conditions that gave rise to the MKP phenomenon and the precipitous drop in ANC support. 

The movement has to respond to the large protest vote, including by reasserting both in the battle of ideas and practice, the fundamental policy areas society thinks the movement has abandoned or moderated and reject all neo-liberal flirtations.

The PEC agreed that the Party’s decision to consolidate support for the ANC, in the face of reactionary and counter-revolutionary offensive against our collective gains was tactically correct. However, the Party’s undertaking that the support was not a blank cheque must be demonstrated practically with an uncompromising elevation of a transformative agenda that prioritises the interests of the working class and poor.

Whilst acknowledging the ANC’s own decision on forming a GNU, the PEC viewed the involvement of the DA and FF+ as a liberalising force that will inherently constrain the prospects of accelerating a necessary radical socio-economic transformation agenda necessary to respond to the voter message in the electoral result. The DA’s unyielding posture against all fundamental policy and programmatic priorities of the movement that favours the majority is well documented. Hoping for a stable government with such unavoidable contradictions is just but a wish.

Therefore, the placement of the DA in particular, at the heart of government, still with scanty detail available to characterise the GNU at this stage, invokes reminiscent scenes of the proverbial ancient Greek Trojan horse with concealed soldiers, gifted to Troy but deceptively used to breach the fortified walls of the City of Troy, once dragged inside, leading to the attack and fall of the City from within. 

The PEC has decided the Party election structures must not be disbanded. The Party structures shall be strengthened and converted into organising and campaigning structures. The immediate task will be to work with and vibrate within communities, follow up community challenges raised during campaigning, advance Party campaigns and, importantly, build wall-to-wall VD-based Party structures that henceforth prepare the SACP for consolidation of state power in the lead-up to the 2026 local government elections. The PEC mandated its officials to engage and advance this option on contesting elections amongst Party structures, the Alliance and in the upcoming Central Committee and planned Special National Congress. 

On the 7th Provincial Administration in Free State and the role of the movement

The PEC reiterated its message of congratulations to the new Premier MaQueen Letsoha-Mathae and her collective of members of the Executive Council, as well as members of parliament and legislature. However, the PEC was grossly offended by the reported absence of Alliance consultation at a structural level by the ANC, on discussion about the composition and configuration of the executive council. The PEC mandated the Party Officials to formally table this and other pressing related issues with the ANC leadership in the province.

The SACP reiterated its expectations of sound political and comradely alignment and relations between political leadership and leadership of government in the province. Unity at this juncture is sacrosanct and the Party welcomes the expressed commitment by both ANC and government leadership, to discharge leadership responsibilities in a manner that render the so-called two centres of power to exist only in the fictional imagination of wedge drivers. More still has to be done to manage the unity and renewal of the movement in the province and heal divisions.

The Party will push for reconfiguration and ensure Alliance mechanisms to manage and support the work of government without micro-management. Furthermore, given limited diverse representation of the ANC in oversight structures of the legislature in the province, the PEC agreed to establish extra-parliamentary mechanisms to collaborate and strengthen the work of the government. The PEC also resolved to establish a team to work on the Party’s contribution to the programmatic priorities of government, informed by the Alliance manifesto priorities.

On the international situation

The system of capitalism is constantly digging its own grave, and the crisis of capitalism is sinking deeper and deeper into quick-sand crises. The PEC noted that inherent contradictions within the system of capitalism are at their sharpest globally, thus revealing the crisis-ridden nature of capitalism in its self-mutilating attempt to survive, global capitalism continues to occasion wars, expand its corrupting character in pursuit of profits and intensity exploitation and suffering of the working class and poor majority of the world. 

Historical experiences of class struggle everywhere show that the working class in general and women in particular continue to experience intensified suffering and exploitation. We see these in the current imperialist sponsored and fascist driven wars in the Ukraine-Russia war, genocidal war in Gaza against the Palestinian people, the destabilising efforts in the Asia-Pacific, the South China Sea and the Korean peninsula as well as developing conflicts on the African continent, especially the unprecedented developments in the Sahel region. The global security architecture is in disarray, and the world has become more dangerous than ever. 

The PEC, however, emphasised that, without an organised left movement internationally that coordinates and concentrates the fighting force of the Left alternative, the prospects of consolidating gains on behalf of the working class at this opportune moment may evaporate. Even potentially progressive formations such as the growing BRICS group of nations, may be hijacked, repurposed and redirected to rescue capital and prolong global suffering. In South Africa, this should mean, amongst others, waging and intensifying a battle against capitalism in general and monopolistic capital in particular as well as bourgeois collaborators in our country, including internal to our movement, represented mainly by the neo-liberal clique. The PEC understood that the task of building a powerful socialist movement must also be seen in this broader context.

Condolences

The SACP extended condolences to the victims of recent gender-based violence across the province and the killing of a woman by marauding Pit bulls. We urge law enforcement agencies and our legal systems to pass strict judgements against perpetrators of GBV and also call for the banning and ending of the domestication of untameable animals within living spaces, such as Pit bulls. 

The PEC appreciated the efforts of Party comrades, including the Party Central Committee in giving our late Deputy Provincial Chairperson and first SACP Executive Mayor Comrade Lindiwe Tshongwe a dignified send-off on 1 June 2024.

Issued by the South African Communist Party,