Hegemonic struggle in post-apartheid South Africa: The role of the South African Communist Party (SACP), 1994--2004

This study examines the South African Communist Party (SACP) and its role in contesting the hegemonic project of neoliberalism in post-apartheid South Africa (1994-2004). Based on decades of struggle and cooperation with the African National Congress (ANC) against white minority rule, the SACP has maintained its alliance with the ANC in the post-apartheid period. The SACP's steadfastness in this regard, despite the ANC's pro-market approach to 'development', has created a number of debilitating contradictions for the Party. Using a neo-Gramscian understanding of hegemony, this project: (1) identifies and explores the compromises and contradictions inherent in the SACP's post-apartheid political project; (2) reveals the manner in which the SACP leadership manages and/or silences critical debate within the Party, especially regarding the Party's commitment to the ANC; and (3) explores the complex and multifaceted relationship between the SACP and the ANC since 1994, and the divisions within the Party this has created. Overall, by remaining firmly committed to supporting, working within, and being rewarded by the ANC, the SACP has effectively operated in a manner which sustains, and even legitimizes, the ANC's post-apartheid accommodation of capital. This has rendered the Party incapable of mounting a credible counter-hegemonic challenge to the neoliberal order in South Africa, as efforts to gain influence within the ANC have come at the expense of building mass based resistance to neoliberalism.