The ANC’s appetite to castigate citizens, mostly working-class people, for convening a conference to discuss critical national issues, in the context of a reality that is increasingly unbearable for the most vulnerable, is distasteful.
Wednesday, 27 May 2026: The South African Communist Party (SACP) has noted the media statement released by the African National Congress (ANC) following its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, specifically the aspects of the statement dealing with the upcoming Conference of the Left to be held from 29 May to 31 May 2026.
We recognise and respect the ANC leadership’s decision and the exercise of its democratic right to choose not to participate in the Conference of the Left. In its decision, however, the ANC leadership wrongly labels the Conference as a “coalition of negation – united by what it stands against, namely the ANC in government”, presumably with the intention to impugn ill intentions and inherent subjectivity on the people and organisations responsible for organising the Conference. This logic assumes that all these forces cannot independently decide on a conference without being driven by some enmity towards the ANC. It also assumes that any and all conferences involving these forces can only be convened to plot against the ANC. Outside of this context, it assumes that these diverse forces lack the will, political acumen and even basic competence to determine how and when to convene a conference and for what purposes. We strongly reject this posture as arrogant and indicative of an inward-looking and self-glorifying tendency of those in high positions in the ANC at this time. The ANC, in this manner, summarises the purpose and substance of the Conference as founded on nothing more than opposing the ANC and its government for its own sake.
The ANC does not appear in this instance to imagine a political discourse that could take shape in the South African political ecosystem except where it either affirms it or contradicts it and its GNU government. For a national liberation movement established with the sole purpose of forging unity among the oppressed masses, the ANC’s appetite to castigate citizens, mostly working-class people, for convening a conference to discuss critical national issues in the context of a reality that is increasingly unbearable for the most vulnerable, which is the overwhelming majority, is not only distasteful but is also devoid of the necessary national vanguard consciousness and is instead isolationist and separatist.
In addition to this, the ANC has pre-empted the Conference processes and conclusions by prematurely characterising those as incapable of articulating “the positive programme by which the working class and the people would advance under its banner”. The ANC, having been not only invited but also engaged on numerous occasions on the subject of the Conference of the Left and its overall intent and objectives, is choosing now not only to remove itself from participating in the Conference and downplay its knowledge of it but has also chosen to allocate to itself the role of its public opponent, thereby attempting to cleanse itself of any association with the Conference. This is selective memory and opportunism, which is greatly regrettable.
The ANC’s decision to withdraw from the Conference processes is a matter of its own subjective reasons clearly rooted in its determination to lean more towards what appears to be self-isolation as opposed to common partnership with various forces working for the success of the Conference and not a reflection of a noble principle on which it purportedly stands. This is not only unfortunate and regrettable but also reveals a paternalistic orientation within the ANC leadership, emblematic of combative politics rather than politics leaning towards promoting unity of the people across partisan lines while seeking solutions for the country.
On the subject of the Conference participants and whether that attendance contradicts the left charter of the Conference, the SACP rejects the ANC’s formulation in this regard. The formulation of the ANC argues that the diversity of the composition of the Conference is a weakness and an indicator of ideological weakness. This minimalist argument emanates from a purist approach that seeks to draw rigid boundaries between political and social constituencies, thereby creating impenetrable barriers between organisations and sectors they organise. This perspective also reveals a reasoning rooted in a conceptualisation of the past that is unable to adapt to a political context that is clearly evolving, necessitating new approaches to understanding and organising popular forces. In the South African context, the left cannot be narrowly defined as only those formations located within the Alliance. That would be historically incorrect and politically limiting. The left has always included trade unions, civic movements, socialist organisations, black consciousness formations, co-operatives, community struggles, progressive intellectuals, anti-imperialist formations and other forces committed to radical transformation.
As the SACP, we believe this moment demands principled engagement and organised contestation, not a retreat into parallel platforms or mutual isolation, as the ANC seems to assert through its NEC statement. The deepening crisis of mass unemployment, deindustrialisation, austerity, failure of public services, state decay, rising social fragmentation, and the real danger of both neoliberal consolidation and right-wing reaction cannot be confronted through fragmentation. The Conference of the Left was initiated precisely to create a space for honest debate, strategic reflection, and possible convergence on the urgent tasks facing workers and the poor.
The SACP categorically rejects the accusation made by the ANC that the Conference seeks to collapse class distinctions or that it has invited business formations into a supposed Conference of the Left. We have never claimed that every small enterprise or informal operator is part of the capitalist class. Millions of people engaged in survivalist micro-enterprises, spaza shops, street vending and informal services are proletarianised and semi-proletarian layers – workers forced to supplement meagre wages, social grants or unemployment with precarious self-activity.
These strata form a significant part of the expanded working class in our country. Equally, genuine worker and community cooperatives represent collective and democratic ownership that stands in opposition to individual capitalist enterprise. Organisations representing micro-enterprises and informal traders are not bourgeois business lobbies. They are structures through which large sections of the working class and poor organise their daily survival. Engaging these formations strengthens rather than weakens the class character of the Conference. Where the SACP engages such structures or cooperatives, it does so from a clear working-class standpoint. Our objective is to organise these layers, defend their survival struggles, and prevent them from being absorbed into bourgeois ideology. Engagement is tactical and always subordinate to the strategic goal of building working-class power and advancing the struggle for socialism.
Much more specifically, the SACP rejects the attempt to present the participation of formations such as NAFCOC as evidence that the Conference lacks a working-class orientation. NAFCOC and similar formations do not represent monopoly capital. They represent mainly black micro and small enterprises, township traders, spaza shop owners, co-operatives and emerging entrepreneurs who are themselves squeezed by monopoly capital, lack of finance, high input costs, unstable infrastructure and exclusion from major value chains.
The Conference of the Left is an open platform for honest contestation among forces that claim to stand with workers and the poor. Participation does not mean endorsement. Differences will be debated openly. What matters is whether these formations are prepared to engage seriously on the crisis facing the working class.
The Conference of the Left is a platform to strengthen, not dilute, class politics. The struggle for socialism, working-class power and a people-centred economy will not be won through isolation.
The ANC NEC’s conceptualisation is not helpful in creating conditions for an effective struggle to solve the crisis facing the people and the working class in particular. The real contradiction is not between workers and struggling black micro-enterprises in townships and villages. The principal contradiction is between the people and monopoly capital, imperialism, austerity and neoliberal policies. A serious left strategy must unite the working class with broader progressive social forces under working-class leadership.
The SACP remains committed to the Alliance as a site of principled engagement. However, Alliance discipline cannot mean silence in the face of unemployment, poverty, inequality, austerity, corruption, weak public services and the rightward drift expressed in current political developments, including the GNU.
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