Cosatu between rock and hard place over ANC, SACP standoff

By Simon Nare

With months to go before the 2026 Local Government Elections, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is still caught between a rock and a hard place as the stand-off between alliance partners the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP) persists.

The trade union federation was thrown a curve ball when the SACP resolved in its special congress in December 2024 to contest for state power, and now it finds itself at a crossroads about who its members should vote for at the ballot box.

COSATU national office bearers and ANC national officials held a bilateral meeting on Monday, and the federation’s parliamentary spokesman, Matthew Parks, said although the issue didn’t come up in the discussions, it remained a sticky point in the alliance.

Parks said the bilateral discussions centered around the state of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), reconfiguration of the alliance, and