/ MEDIA STATEMENT / The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

The South African Communist Party in Mpumalanga Province is utterly disgusted by the recent unfounded remarks by Collen Malatji, the President of the ANC Youth League. Speaking at the Peter Mokaba Memorial Lecture, he displayed his lack of understanding of the congress movement by launching an attack on the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party, Comrade Solly Mapaila.

His verbal diarrhoea does not come as a surprise to us as he is not the first to be diagnosed. We have seen these symptoms from some of his senior leaders before. It is very contagious and venomous for anyone who lacks political understanding of the congress movement and the organisational processes. At first, he must understand that reducing the collective decision to an individual is malicious and can only be done by counter-revolutionary forces or populist demagogues.

The decision of the Party to contest elections was taken long before the Party resolved to contest the 2026 Local Government Elections in the recent 5th Special National Congress, and we want to state it categorically clear that it is not the personal decision of the General Secretary. The General Secretary is responsible for the communication, interpretation and implementation of the congress resolutions. To isolate the General Secretary and make people believe that the Party is a one-man show is nothing but cheap political propaganda that lacks substance.  

It should be understood that political parties exist for one thing, and that is state power, because it is a vehicle through which parties can change the lives of the people meaningfully. The Party as a vanguard of the working class and poor has the same responsibility and to ensure that the class struggle does not go in vain. It is through the class struggle, including fighting to win state power that the Party can resolve antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions which society is daily confronted with. 

The shared characteristics and principles of the formations of our strategic Alliance are unity, non-racialism, non-sexism, democracy, collective leadership and accountability to the movement as well as the people, and all other principles enshrined in the Freedom Charter. Our Revolutionary Alliance is a strategic Alliance of both interdependent and independent partners. Emphasising one of these two anchors of the Alliance at the expense of the other will be a serious error for revolutionaries to commit.

Therefore, it should not be seen as a problem to some that the Party contests elections particularly by those who characterise themselves as a disciplined force of the left. They have no reason to hire political pocketknives to attack the General Secretary. We want to reiterate once again that the General Secretary does not speak for himself but for the entire organisation when communicating the decisions of the Party. The SACP in Mpumalanga will not sit back and be a spectator in malicious propaganda against Comrade Solly Mapaila. 

On several platforms, Comrade Mapaila speaking on behalf of the SACP characterised the MKP as a Party associated with “State Capture”. It is also the SACP that called for the investigation in the corporate capture of the state which was later coined “State Capture”. It is therefore absurd for Collen to assume that Comrade Solly can join the MK Party. Collen Malatji is being delusional and driven by populism.

The SACP in Mpumalanga province is also looking forward to the upcoming bilateral between the ANC and the SACP with hopes that it will assist those within the movement who are confused about the current state of affairs in our body politic.

Issued by SACP Mpumalanga Province