Clouds (mainly metaphorical) could dampen Workers’ Day celebrations and rallies across the country with the decision of the South African Communist Party (SACP) to contest the upcoming local government elections in its own name placing unprecedented stress on its relationship with the African National Congress (ANC).

The two parties have a history of co-operation that stretches back to the 1940s, and which intensified in the 1950s and 1960s as the ANC adopted a more militant and confrontational style of activism, being ultimately forced into exile. For many senior members of the ANC, dual membership with the SACP was normal and uncontroversial, and for much of the exile period, white, coloured, and Indian activists joined the movement through the SACP (senior leadership roles in the ANC were not open to people who weren’t black until the 1980s).

The SACP has almost exclusively gained representation since 1994 on the ANC ticket. While the numbers involved are unknown, it has been estimated that at times as much as a quarter of the ANC parliamentary caucus were SACP members.

Last month, ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula issued a formal demand for those holding dual membership to choose for which party they would campaign.

He remarked: “The Communist Party contests power for socialism, and it must express that in its campaign, but it cannot isolate the ANC as a target. And the same as the ANC cannot isolate and attack the SACP.”

In a lengthy response, the SACP said that this is “regrettably a serious anti-communist political move with far-reaching implications, which also changes the character of the ANC as we know it”, and that it rejected this move “with the contempt it deserves”.

It went on to say that it had taken the decision to seek its own representation because of failings in the ANC’s conduct: “[Differences] arose from political deviations on the liberation agenda and radical economic changes required to make liberation tangible and meaningful to the masses; prevarication on the common ownership of the land and the wealth beneath it; a deeper crisis in the movement, characterised by mass disillusionment and declining voter turnout; neoliberal drift by the government; control of the economy and economics of our country by monopoly capital and foreign forces, including the Harvard group; corruption and patronage; factionalism; and the marginalisation of working-class solutions in major policy questions.”

It was, the SACP said, seeking a reconfiguration of the Tripartite Alliance, in which the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is the other member along with the ANC. “It is not a retreat from the National Democratic Revolution,” the SACP averred. “It is a struggle over its class direction, its organisational content and its future.”

COSATU, meanwhile, has appealed to both parties to find each other. “If these [issues] are not resolved with the necessary political maturity and strategic foresight, we fear they may worsen and potentially threaten the very survival of the alliance,” said COSATU parliamentary coordinator Matthew Parks.

The SACP has been at odds with the ANC for many years over a range of issues, dating back to the 1990s, when it rejected the economic policy package – the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) – as “neoliberal”. President Thabo Mbeki (himself a onetime SACP member) disregarded these protests and mused publicly about the future disbandment of the alliance.

Later, the SACP was instrumental in campaigning for Mbeki’s removal and for Jacob Zuma to take over the presidency.

For the most part, however, the alliance has offered the SACP extraordinary influence. The ANC has often leaned on the SACP as a “brains trust”. The National Democratic Revolution, its overall approach to politics, was essentially an SACP idea.

The ANC brand no longer carries the same weight as it did; but the SACP has hardly registered in surveys as a political choice. There is also no indication that its policy positions would be popular among a mostly conservative electorate. A breakup could prove very costly for it, while pitting many former ANC activists against one another, potentially inflicting great damage on all.

The question therefore arises: will this be the final Workers’ Day for the Alliance? And what will the collapse of the Alliance mean for the parties within it?