{"id":97074,"date":"2026-04-11T14:37:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T14:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge"},"modified":"2026-04-11T14:47:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T14:47:40","slug":"mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge","title":{"rendered":"Mbalula Calls SACP Election Bid Water Under the Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Fikile Mbalula said that the party considers the South African Communist Party (SACP) decision to independently contest local government elections as \u201cwater under the bridge\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the focus now for the ANC is the implication of this decision for the upcoming campaign, and what will happen after the election.<\/p>\n<p>The ANC\u2019s National Executive Committee on Friday convened a special meeting to discuss the practicalities of the SACP\u2019s decision, from which Mbalula sais there is no going back, to convince it to contest elections under the ANC banner as it always has.<\/p>\n<p>Fikile Mbalula said that despite attempts to reason with the SACP, the ANC failed to convince it otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the SACP has already been implementing its decision by contesting recent by-elections.<\/p>\n<p>Although the ANC permits dual membership, Mbalula said that the party has to consider the implications of candidates standing in opposition to the ANC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You need to deal with the practical thing of you can\u2019t have the same people serving the same organisation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite the conundrum the alliance finds itself in, Mbalula said that the partnership remains intact.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is no decision to break the alliance. We don\u2019t have that mandate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mbalula said that Friday\u2019s meeting is intended to give direction to ANC branches on how the two parties will relate to each other during the election campaign.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Fikile Mbalula said that the party considers the South African Communist Party (SACP) decision to independently contest local government elections as \u201cwater under the bridge\u201d. He said that the focus now for the ANC is the implication of this decision for the upcoming campaign, and what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":97073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-97074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mbalula Calls SACP Election Bid Water Under the Bridge - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Fikile Mbalula said that the party considers the South African Communi ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mbalula Calls SACP Election Bid Water Under the Bridge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Fikile Mbalula said that the party considers the South African Communi ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-11T14:37:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-11T14:47:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/04\/sm_1775906158.156076.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Mbalula Calls SACP Election Bid Water Under the Bridge\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-11T14:37:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-11T14:47:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge\"},\"wordCount\":256,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/04\/sm_1775906158.156076.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mbalula-calls-sacp-election-bid-water-under-the-bridge\",\"name\":\"Mbalula Calls SACP Election Bid Water Under the Bridge - 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