When alliance politics meets electoral reality

THE South African Communist Party's (SACP) announcement that it intends to contest future elections independently of the ANC is not a tactical adjustment.

- MHLABUNZIMA MEMELA

It is a political rupture whose consequences will reverberate through government, Parliament and the broader liberation movement. For decades, the Tripartite Alliance has been sustained by shared Struggle history and negotiated coexistence. Once an alliance partner signals its intention to leave the ANC's electoral platform, the logic of deployment, loyalty and accountability is fundamentally altered.

At the centre of this moment is an uncomfortable but unavoidable truth: no political organisation can contest power against another while simultaneously enjoying the benefits of that organisation's electoral mandate. If the SACP is serious about standing independently, then political integrity and democratic accountability require that those deployed through ANC lists into government, legislatures and executive positions vacate those offices. Anything less amounts to political double-dipping and undermines the voters' will.

The ANC's deployment system rests on a singular mandate derived from citizens who vote for the ANC on the ballot paper. Ministers, deputy ministers, premiers, Members of Parliament and Members of Provincial Legislatures and councillors are not deployed as individuals or alliance representatives; they are deployed as ANC cadres charged with implementing ANC policy. South Africans do not vote for alliances in the abstract. To remain in office while preparing to oppose the ANC electorally is to erode the very mandate that legitimises one's presence in government. The SACP's frustration is not without context.