SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila snubbed the ANC’s January 8 event as tensions between the two alliance partners reach boiling point over the SACP’s decision to contest elections independently.

Mapaila also did not attend the ANC’s national general council (NGC) last month.

Instead he deployed his first deputy general secretary Madala Masuku to attend both events.

This comes as the SACP, under Mapaila’s leadership, has decided to break ranks and contest elections independently of the ANC-led tripartite alliance for the first since the formation of the alliance.

Mapaila has been vocal about his unhappiness with the ANC’s decision to form the government of national unity (GNU) which included the DA, a party he considers the enemy.

Mapaila’s absence at the January 8 event came despite ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa urging Mapaila and SACP members during the Joe Slovo event earlier this week to honour their invitation to attend the celebrations.

Ramaphosa, speaking at that event, said though there were clearly tensions between the ANC and the SACP, he was expecting its leadership to attend the January 8 celebrations as the ANC leadership had attended an SACP event.

“We must protect the alliance, strengthen it and unite it. And that is why we are pleased that even as we differ, we are still able to get together as we are today. We are still able to attend each other’s events,” said Ramaphosa earlier in the week.

“And we look forward to the party attending the January 8 celebrations to join the ANC in your great numbers showing your red T-shirts at the ANC celebrations as the ANC has also come here in our great numbers.

“Despite the disagreements of the present, our common objective remains the same. The achievement of a national democratic society.”

The ANC has all but failed to convince the SACP to reverse its decision to contest elections as an independent party.

Mapaila on Tuesday announced, in front of Ramaphosa, that his party has picked March as its date to hold its local government elections manifesto conference.

“Sometime in March we will convene ourselves at the people’s manifesto conference where communities will come together — trade unions, informal traders, youth, women, faith-based activists, progressive professionals and formations of the working class — to determine their own manifesto,” Mapaila said to applause from SACP members.

The ANC has been at pains to convince Mapaila of the negative impact the SACP’s decision will have on the alliance.

Despite Mapaila’s absence, the SACP’s Masuku congratulated the ANC on its 114th birthday, reflecting in his message of support on the party’s strides in the pursuit of its mission.

“We are not coming here today to fulfil a non-existing thing, we are coming here to remind you comrades that as you are taking the cause of renewal, you must know that we have branded you as the leader of society. This is because you have a history of fulfilling that.”

He touched briefly on the issue of the SACP contesting the elections independently.

“… we want to be honest and put it to ourselves that the economy, property relations, ownership of the economy and the means of production are still lingering behind and this is the area that we believe we must be going to. This is the cause of inequality, poverty, hunger and creates problems of crime.

“On this day, we are saying to you comrades, we feel that the communist party on the issue of property relations and economic transformation, we want to come in and participate directly in the state, to assist you in order to drive this project to move in a faster pace.”

Masuku said the SACP has heard the pleas of alliance partners to sit together to ventilate their issues through discussion.

“We want to welcome all the requests that have been made by alliance members that we should go and sit down and look at this engagement and approach that we are taking is not going to create a problem and retard the NDR [national democratic revolution] but must be in a complementary manner.”

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