Conference of the Left
Building a Left Movement for Working-Class and Popular Power
Press Statement
Conference of the Left adopts Declaration for Working-Class and Popular Power
Birchwood Hotel, Ekurhuleni | 31 May 2026
The Conference of the Left, convened from 29 to 31 May 2026 under the theme "Building a Left Movement for Working-Class and Popular Power," has adopted a historic Declaration committing participating formations to rebuild the organised power of the working class and the poor.
The Conference brought together political parties, trade unions and federations, community and social movements, co-operative and solidarity economy formations, youth and women’s formations, student organisations, faith and religious formations, traditional leadership structures, progressive intellectuals, international solidarity organisations, and fraternal continental and global organisations of the Left.
The Conference declared that South Africa is in a deep structural crisis rooted in capitalism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, monopoly power, patriarchy, racism, austerity, unemployment, hunger, inequality, social violence, ecological destruction and the unfinished transformation of society after 1994.
We did not gather to lament this crisis. We gathered to organise against it.
The Conference affirmed that the 1994 democratic advance was a historic victory of the people’s struggle against apartheid colonialism. It opened political space, extended democratic rights and created possibilities for deeper transformation. But the 1994 settlement did not resolve the national, class, gender and land questions. It did not dismantle monopoly capitalist ownership and control of the economy. It did not return the land to the people. It did not place the commanding heights of the economy under democratic control.
The task of the present moment is therefore clear: to defend democratic gains while advancing beyond the limits of the 1994 settlement towards economic democracy, social ownership, land justice, working-class power and socialism.
The Conference adopted the position that the struggle for popular power must be anchored in the leadership of the working class. The working class is not one constituency among many. It is the decisive social force capable of confronting monopoly capitalism, reorganising production, defending democratic gains and leading society towards a future beyond capitalism.
The Conference further affirmed that the strategic goal is a society based on social ownership, democratic economic control, wealth redistribution, equality, solidarity, ecological sustainability, peace, and the full liberation of workers and the poor. For many participating formations, this goal is socialism. At the same time, the Left movement must be broad enough to unite all who stand with the working class, the poor, the unemployed, women, youth, students, rural communities, people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ communities, migrants and all oppressed groups, including those who do not identify as socialist but are committed to fighting exploitation, inequality, austerity, monopoly capitalism, patriarchy, racism, xenophobia, Afrophobia, war and imperialism.
The Conference declared that the question of ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy is foundational. Without changing ownership, there can be no real transformation. The Declaration commits the Left to the expansion of public, social, worker, co-operative and community ownership, and to the building of a strong democratic co-operative movement from the ground up.
Co-operatives must not be treated as marginal projects or poverty relief schemes. They must become part of a wider strategy for social ownership, local production, democratic control, decent livelihoods and popular economic power. This includes worker co-operatives, consumer co-operatives, village agricultural co-operatives, co-operative financial institutions, secondary co-operative structures and solidarity economy networks rooted in communities, workplaces, villages and townships.
The Conference placed the land question at the centre of transformation. Land stolen through colonialism, apartheid and capitalist accumulation must be returned to the people. Restitution must be coupled with redistribution. The Conference stands for security of tenure, land restitution, land redistribution, and expropriation of land without compensation. Land reform must restore dignity, advance equality, expand democratic access to land, and place land in the hands of those who work it and live on it.
The Conference also resolved to support anti-eviction legislation to protect vulnerable land occupiers, tenants, farm dwellers, homeless communities and working-class households from unjust, unlawful, illegal and arbitrary evictions. The Left will fight for security of tenure, transfer of land rights to the people, rent reduction, and the overcoming of landlord domination.
The Conference declared that the Left must move from critique to the construction of a credible alternative economic plan for South Africa. This plan must include fiscal policy, monetary policy, industrial policy, trade policy, public investment, ownership and control of strategic sectors, developmental finance, democratic planning, and the allocation of resources towards employment, production, public services and social ownership.
The Conference calls for the nationalisation of the South African Reserve Bank and a fundamental review of its mandate, ownership, governance and accountability. Monetary policy must serve employment, industrialisation, developmental finance, public investment, transformation and the needs of the working class and poor.
The Conference also calls for a review of the 1996 Constitution from the standpoint of unfinished national democratic and socialist tasks, including land, property relations, public ownership, social rights, participatory democracy, the role of the state in the economy, and the transformation of state power in favour of the working class and poor.
The Conference rejected the false choice between corruption and privatisation. Corruption, maladministration, looting and elite impunity must be confronted decisively. But handing over electricity, rail, ports, water systems, spectrum, public health, public transport and other strategic network industries to private profiteers is not a solution. It is the continuation of the neoliberal offensive under another name.
The Conference therefore opposes the privatisation and fragmentation of strategic network industries. These sectors must remain under public ownership and democratic control, and must serve industrialisation, employment, service delivery, national sovereignty and the needs of the people.
The Conference affirmed the right to work and the right to a livelihood as central demands of the working class. South Africa cannot accept mass unemployment as normal. The Conference calls for a public-led programme of employment and production, driven by public investment, democratic planning and state-led industrialisation. It supports insourcing legislation, the abolition of outsourcing in permanent and routine public functions, and the organisation of the unemployed as a conscious political force.
The Conference declared that South Africa’s critical minerals must be used strategically for industrialisation, not merely exported as raw materials for foreign corporations and imperialist supply chains. The mineral wealth beneath our soil must serve the people, beneficiation, local manufacturing, energy sovereignty, public infrastructure, technology transfer, skills development and decent work.
The Conference also declared that trade agreements, foreign loans, investment arrangements and financing agreements must be subjected to full parliamentary scrutiny, public disclosure, democratic debate and consultation with workers, communities and affected sectors. No agreement must undermine sovereignty, industrial policy, public procurement, food sovereignty, labour rights, environmental standards, democratic planning or the developmental role of the state.
The Conference committed to a common front against the rising cost of living. Food, energy, water, sanitation, healthcare, education, housing and transport must be treated as public goods, not commodities. The Conference supports a permanent Universal Basic Income Grant, the abolition of student debt, and expanded social protection for the unemployed, students, pensioners, people with disabilities, caregivers, children and all vulnerable sectors of the working class and poor.
The Conference committed to defending a fully funded National Health Insurance system against private capitalist capture. NHI must not become a mechanism for funding the privatisation of healthcare or subsidising private providers at public expense. It must form part of the wider struggle for redistribution, public provision, equality, social rights and the decommodification of healthcare.
The Conference affirmed the dignity, equality and full democratic rights of people with disabilities and LGBTQI+ communities. The Left rejects all discrimination, violence, exclusion, humiliation and reactionary scapegoating directed against oppressed groups. The struggle for socialism must be a struggle for the liberation of all oppressed and exploited people.
The Conference declared social violence a central question of working-class life and struggle. It condemned gender-based violence, violence against children, organised crime, extortion, substance abuse, gambling harms, xenophobic attacks, political intimidation, violence against activists and the abandonment of communities by the state. It further condemned the role of capital in profiting from social misery through industries that deepen alcohol abuse, substance dependency, gambling addiction, debt, family breakdown and community insecurity.
The Conference calls for community safety to be built through organised social power: democratic policing accountable to communities, functioning public services, street and section committees, women-led safety structures, youth programmes, rehabilitation services, local economic development, and the protection of activists, organisers and community leaders.
On migration, the Conference declares that illegal migration is a matter of serious concern and must be addressed through lawful, humane, rights-based and effective regulation consistent with African solidarity. Migration must not be used to generate Afrophobia, xenophobia or hatred against African and other migrant communities.
The crisis was not created by migrants. At the same time, the Conference condemns the use of migrant workers as cheap labour by employers who exploit weak labour enforcement to undercut wages, divide workers and weaken unions.
The answer is not scapegoating. The answer is effective border management, proper documentation systems, strong labour inspection, enforcement of minimum wages and labour rights, action against exploitative employers, and the organisation of all workers into common struggle.
The Conference declared that climate justice is a class question. The just energy transition must be worker-led, publicly planned, socially owned and based on South Africa’s developmental needs. It must be sequenced at a pace the country can afford, while protecting workers, communities, energy security, industrialisation and the environment. South Africa must use an appropriate energy mix, including renewable energy, coal and nuclear, under public ownership and democratic planning.
The Conference affirmed progressive internationalism, radical Pan-Africanism and the struggle for peace as strategic principles of the Left. We stand against war, militarism, occupation, sanctions, regime-change operations and imperialist aggression. We express solidarity with the oppressed masses of the world, including the peoples of Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Western Sahara and the Sahel.
The Conference supports South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice against Israel under the Genocide Convention and calls for intensified solidarity with the Palestinian people, including public mobilisation, boycotts, divestment, sanctions, legal accountability and the isolation of institutions complicit in apartheid, occupation and genocide.
The Conference expresses unwavering solidarity with Cuba and calls for a South African Cuba Solidarity and Anti-Blockade Bill. It rejects threats of war, destabilisation and unilateral sanctions against Cuba and other sovereign nations as instruments to provoke hardship, weaken sovereignty and impose regime change.
The Conference also supports strategic delinking from imperialist dependency while deepening African integration and Global South cooperation. This requires industrialisation, food sovereignty, public control over strategic resources, regional value chains, shared infrastructure, technology transfer, alternative finance systems, regional payment systems, public and development banking, co-operative banking, debt audits, action against illicit financial flows, de-dollarisation and sovereign development paths.
The Conference resolved to establish a Council of the Left as a standing instrument of coordination. The Council is not a new party. It will not contest elections in its own name. It will not replace existing formations or override their autonomy. It will coordinate campaigns, political education, mass mobilisation, policy development, research, communication and implementation.
The Council shall be based on equality among participating organisations. No single formation shall dominate it. Political parties, trade unions, community movements, youth and women’s formations, co-operative and solidarity economy structures, student organisations, faith and religious formations, traditional leadership structures, progressive intellectuals and international solidarity formations shall participate on the basis of mutual respect, democratic engagement and unity in action.
The Conference adopted a first-phase Programme of Action organised around eight clusters:
1. Economic transformation, work and livelihoods.
2. Cost of living, public services and social protection.
3. Land, restitution, redistribution and local democratic economies.
4. Public health, NHI and social reproduction.
5. Social violence, community safety and working-class unity.
6. Climate justice, energy sovereignty and the just transition.
7. Internationalism, Pan-Africanism, peace and anti-imperialist solidarity.
8. Review of the 1996 Constitution, state power and democratic transformation.
Each cluster must have a working group, responsible formations, clear timelines, allocated resources and twelve-month measurable outcomes.
The Conference affirms that the Left cannot rebuild working-class power through declarations alone. It must build the capacity to organise, educate, mobilise, strike, campaign, negotiate, research, communicate and implement.
Unity is not silence. Unity is not the erasure of difference. Unity is not surrendering political identity. Unity means acting together where we agree, debating honestly where we differ, and refusing to allow differences to be used by capital, reaction and imperialism to weaken the people.
The Conference leaves with a responsibility to the millions who are not in this hall: the unemployed worker, the young person denied a future, the student crushed by debt and exclusion, the woman who fears violence, the person with a disability excluded from full participation, the LGBTQI+ person facing discrimination, the family crushed by the cost of living, the migrant scapegoated for a crisis they did not create, the farm worker, the mineworker, the informal trader, the pensioner, the nurse, the teacher, the cleaner, the security worker, the shack dweller and the rural poor.
They did not send us here to perform our divisions. They are entitled to expect that the Left and progressive forces can unite in action, name the system that oppresses them, contest state power, transform society and fight for a future based on dignity, equality, peace, land, work, public ownership and socialism.
The future will not be given to us. It must be organised.
Forward to working-class leadership in the struggle for popular power.
Forward to unity in action.
Forward against capitalism, neo-colonialism and imperialism.
Forward to land restitution, redistribution and expropriation without compensation.
Forward to public, social, worker, co-operative and community ownership.
Forward to the right to live without fear.
Forward to peace and international solidarity.
Forward to a society organised around social and environmental need, not private profit.
ISSUED BY THE STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE LEFT
Mbulelo Mandlana, Head of Media, Communications and Information
+27(0) 81 556 1903
ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.
Media, Communications & Information Department | MCID
Mbulelo Mandlana, Head of Media, Communications and Information
+27(0) 81 556 1903
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