---
title: "SACP’s strong showing signals end of the Tripartite Alliance"
description: "In its first showing, the SACP beat the Patriotic Alliance, winning 271 seats."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "LOCAL ELECTIONS 2026"
author: "Ferial Haffajee"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/ferialhaffajee/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-11-08-sacps-strong-showing-signals-end-of-the-tripartite-alliance/"
published: "2026-11-08T22:12:09"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 671
---

# SACP’s strong showing signals end of the Tripartite Alliance

> In its first showing, the SACP beat the Patriotic Alliance, winning 271 seats.

By Ferial Haffajee · Published 9 November 2026, 00:12 SAST

## Key points
- The SACP’s first solo election campaign delivered 271 seats and 2.38% of the national vote, outpolling the Patriotic Alliance.
- Its break with the ANC helped expose the governing party’s ‘catastrophic’ 32% result — and may mark the end of the Tripartite Alliance.
- Support was strongest in industrial townships and parts of Limpopo and North West, while Gauteng voters shifted towards ActionSA and the DA.
- Now the SACP must turn its working-class agenda — from fixing water services to holding councillors accountable — into action, while deciding who to ally with next.

## Content

At the national results centre on Friday, 6 November, dressed in a crisp red Cuban shirt, SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila grinned like a Cheshire cat. The party has won 271 seats in its maiden election.

For 32 years, over 14 elections, SACP members and supporters threw in their lot with the ANC.

As part of the Tripartite Alliance, SACP and Cosatu members have traditionally voted for the ANC. Party members have formed an essential part of the ANC machinery, as research by Professor Karl von Holdt has shown. The loss of this experience is at least one factor in the ANC’s self-described “catastrophic” showing – it received a national mandate from only 32% of voters.

[Media: "Party support: South Africa · Daily Maverick"](https://bernard-lgtm.github.io/elections-graphics/graphic.html?embed=support)

This time around, on a shoestring budget, the SACP did a go-it-alone, to the chagrin of the ANC. It cast out party members who had initially been on its candidate lists. It made leading SACP members, like Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, former SACP leader Blade Nzimande, choose a side.

The SACP has won 271 seats and a total of 2.38% as a national tally. In the industrial townships of Nelson Mandela Bay, where the trade union, National Union of Metalworkers, is strong, it picked up votes, winning four seats. It also won support in Limpopo and North West. It won less support in Gauteng, where black workers and what the ANC calls the “middle-strata” (or middle class, where organised workers fit in) skedaddled to Action SA and even to the DA.

The SACP won more seats than the Patriotic Alliance (192 seats) – the kingmaker star of previous elections. The well-branded Rise Mzansi, by comparison, won nine seats and no wards. Bosa, the party of former DA leader Mmusi Maimane, won seven seats and no wards.

The ANC is still the largest party with a national outcome of just over 30%; it controls 53 councils and leads in 128. Its members still have 3,248 seats and is still the behemoth; but the SACP marks yet another split from the ANC.

There are now four splits from the ANC: Congress of the People (Cope – gone and forgotten); the EFF (on a plateau this election at 6.22%); and the UDM (0.84% and doing well as it is now the official opposition in Buffalo City). And now the SACP.

![SACP](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/3UE7jWxc-77UJoX4kNwV-dyZPw8=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Blog-LGE-2026-Friday30_172675.jpg)

*The SACP’s Solly Mapaila (centre) at the election results centre in Midrand, Johannesburg on 6 November 2026. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)*

The SACP’s declaration of independence and its decision to run marks the effective end of the Tripartite Alliance, a political pact that was at the heart of the political social contract in South Africa. Mapaila told the SABC that the party would hold a second Conference of the Left this week to decide on which parties it will ally with.

The rise of a progressive left is an important trend everywhere from Brazil (where President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a renewed mandate in October), to the US (where progressives and Democratic Socialists powered the blue wave in the mid-term elections) and in Serbia (where a progressive youth-led leaderless movement won the recent election).

The SACP has a different agenda to many other parties, as this [analysis](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-08-23-manifesto-test-sacp-s-power-to-the-people-and-a-working-class-embraced/) of its manifesto shows.

> #### **These are the highlights the SACP must now act on in the communities and councils where it will have new political influence:**
>
> ### **1. Water and sanitation**
>
> Ward-by-ward audits, public maintenance plans, rapid-response teams for leaks and sewer spills, and a shift towards preventative maintenance.
>
> ### **2. Ending the bucket system**
>
> An explicit commitment to eradicate the bucket toilet system, more than 30 years into democracy.
>
> ### **3. Community safety**
>
> Community safety forums, street and section committees, repaired streetlights, safer routes and services for survivors of gender-based violence.
>
> ### **4. Municipal land and housing**
>
> Auditing municipal land, protecting it from capture and using it for affordable housing, food production, cooperatives and community facilities.
>
> ### **5. Councillor accountability**
>
> Open ward assemblies, monthly feedback, disclosure of interests, rejection of tender influence and the recall of councillors who betray their manifesto.

**DM**