Friday, 12 June 2026:- The South African Communist Party in Mpumalanga province held its 13th Plenary Session of the 11th Provincial Congress via virtual video conferencing on 7 June 2026. The meeting was attended by the Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) members, district representatives, the Young Communist League of South Africa and the deployed Central Committee members led by Comrade Alex Mashilo.
The meeting took place just two months after we celebrated the life and times of Chris Hani, the former General Secretary of the SACP, who was assassinated by the bourgeoisie agenda. Both the national and provincial events were held in Mpumalanga and were highly successful. We take this opportunity to thank all of our provincial structures and the Central Committee members led by the General Secretary for making the commemorations a success and dignified.
The SACP in Mpumalanga province continues to be fully functional in terms of implementing its mandate as prescribed in the constitution for the PEC together with lower structures, and the work includes the efficiency of the 2026 local government elections campaign. The SACP districts and the Young Communist League of South Africa have also renewed their mandates in the recent successful congress, and inductions were also conducted.
Our communities, particularly in the most affected high-risk places like Marite, Mkhuhlu, Kabokweni, and Mbalenhle, to mention but a few, remain under siege. Townships and parts of suburbs operate as de facto lawless zones. We are calling for communists to rise, protect the people and defend the whole province against criminals, mafia, syndicates and gangster networks, as well as against the failure of the government and law enforcement authorities to stop the rot and guarantee public safety and security.
Death threats
The SACP in Mpumalanga Province expresses its critical concern and strong condemnation of the death threats and intimidation directed at its members and leaders in the Harold Molobela District, in particular at Bushbuckridge Municipality and Ephraim Mogale District, especially in Thembisile Hani Municipality. We have since opened cases with the Organised Crime Unit for proper investigations and call upon the police to arrest those who are involved in these criminal activities.
These threats have been intensified following the solid SACP groundbreaking resolution to independently and actively contest state and popular power as the vanguard Party of the working class. This is the best decision towards responding to the triple challenges, social reproduction and the GBV+F facing the vulnerable working class at a time when the NDR is on regression. It is, therefore, regrettable that Mpumalanga continues to rank amongst the most dangerous places in the country, as unfortunately two tourists were also recently killed in the Kruger National Park.
We are reminded of previous painful events, including the Kanyamazane commemoration of Joe Slovo and Jimmy Mohlala, where communists were attacked in front of a police station and no one has been arrested to date. Such incidents are still a stark reminder of the dangers of political intolerance and violence. We demand the Kanyamazane report be released, as Luthuli House deployed a team of veterans to investigate, but the findings were never communicated. This is a cause for concern, as it contributes to and plants foreign tendencies within the movement.
In this regard, the SACP will seek an urgent meeting with the ANC in Mpumalanga Province to address these developments and to collectively work towards ending political violence that rears its ugly head. It cannot become normal for political contestation to result in bloodshed, leaving behind widows and orphans. The SACP reaffirms its unwavering commitment to political tolerance, peaceful engagement, and democratic processes. We call on all political organisations participating in the elections to uphold the principles of free and fair elections and to reject all forms of violence and intimidation.
The moment
This is a most difficult period of our struggle where we need the independent working-class struggles that can enter in the Alliance with other Left parties to intensify the struggle to achieve socialism. The SACP stands for the working class on the basis that it represents their interests and aspirations. The Party’s objective is to confront the barbaric capitalist system which perpetuates the oppression and exploitation of one by another.
The Party draws lessons from the Chinese Revolution as analysed by Mao Zedong on “self-revolution” as the cornerstone of renewal, which should encourage building a Marxist-Leninist Party with ideological clarity rooted in the concrete conditions to dialectically ground a coherent organisation at all levels of our structures and combat opportunism, careerism and bourgeois influence that are characterised by divisions and greed.
The recent National Conference of the Left was clear that the strategic mission is a society beyond capitalism, based on social ownership, democratic economic control, wealth redistribution, land justice, equality, solidarity, ecological sustainability, peace and the full liberation of workers and the poor. These goals mean that the province must work hard towards hosting the Provincial Conference of the Left to unite the fragmented working class and build unity of purpose anchored on class consciousness.
International
The xenophobic attacks in South Africa should be put into correct perspective, as similar attacks have been experienced in Ghana and some years later also in Nigeria and Libya. In the main, these attacks are related to class oppression, as they have everything to do with economic relations within the working class and the same race. The SACP does not support illegal immigrants, but at the very same time xenophobia is not supported.
The coherence of the Sahel regional countries has revitalised the appetite of regions in the continent towards working together to confront imperialism and other class-antagonistic challenges. SADC has much to learn from the Sahel region and will need to develop an interest in the situation in Swaziland, where political parties and activities remain banned, where the only absolute monarch in the whole world still exists and human rights are violated.
The imperialist wars, the arrest of the democratically elected President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, together with his wife, and threats to the sovereignty of Cuba and other countries – all propagated by the US imperialist regime – expose the inhumanity of imperialism. We need to appreciate countries like China and Russia for bringing stability in the world under very difficult conditions. Russia has continued to stamp its authority by not surrendering to the pressures of Nato, US and Ukraine aggression combined.
ISSUED BY THE SACP MPUMALANGA PROVINCE
For further information contact:
Lucky Mbuyane
SACP Provincial Secretary
082 351 5804
OR
Mandla Mapiyeye
SACP Spokesperson
082 266 9091
ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.
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