ANC's 5th NGC: A Line in the Sand – The Alliance, Ideological Direction and the Global Balance of Forces

The 5th NGC is not only a stock-take of the ANC. It is an X-ray of the entire liberation project. What happens in the commissions on Alliance, International Relations, Peace and Security, and Economic Transformation will decide whether we enter the 2026 elections as a fragmented left under siege, or as a disciplined, development-driven front rooted in workers and the poor, embracing all sectors and strata of society including business and professionals.

Right now, three fault lines are visible at once:

• an Alliance at a crossroads,
• ⁠a world order in violent transition, and
• a movement that still has not aligned its foreign policy, economic policy and organisational practice around a single development mission.

If the left remains divided, the right will consolidate. If the Alliance remains reactive, the agenda will be set elsewhere. If our ideology remains nostalgic, the future will belong to others. This reality we must confront: the world has moved. Our people have moved. The question is whether we will move with purpose.

1.⁠ ⁠The Alliance at a Crossroads, Again

The SACP has formally moved to contest elections in its own name after two decades of failed attempts to reconfigure the Alliance into a strategic centre, not a consultative club. COSATU arrives at this NGC publicly calling for real renewal and unity around minimum POA, warning that unless the ANC, SACP, COSATU and SANCO recover their mass base and coherence, they will lose the leadership of society.

At the same time, ANC leaders are sending mixed signals: on the one hand calling for unity, on the other rejecting dual membership proposals and treating the SACP’s independent path as a threat, rather than a warning flare. The SACP’s debate about contesting elections is not “betrayal”.

It is a diagnosis of: ANC drift; policy incoherence; erosion of working-class confidence, and a shrinking left ideological centre.

The pattern is familiar:

• a divided left, running multiple overlapping campaigns,
• a united consolidated conservative and elite bloc locally and globally connected,
• working people’s fear and anger with nowhere coherent to go.

If we repeat that pattern into 2026, it will not only be the ANC that pays the price. It will be the entire project of the National Democratic Revolution.

The choice remains: “Either we reconfigure the Alliance as a development war-room, or the people will reconfigure South African politics without us.”

2.⁠ ⁠From 'Consultation' to a Development Pact

For more than 20 years the Alliance has been treated as a meeting calendar, not a strategic instrument. The SACP’s decision to contest independently and COSATU’s public frustration both arise from one central grievance: there is no binding, shared strategy that allocates roles, responsibilities and accountability. Reconfiguration must therefore mean at least four hard shifts:

1.⁠ ⁠Shared diagnosis

• Agree that the central task of this phase is national development and productive transformation, not abstract “renewal” or vague “radical transformation”
• Put in writing that corruption, criminal sovereignty and de-industrialisation are class questions, not technical glitches.

2.⁠ ⁠Shared programme

• A single Alliance programme with 10 concrete national development priorities (industrial corridors, youth skills pipelines, energy transition, public transport, crime disruption, procurement reform, etc.), each with lead and supporting partners.

3.⁠ ⁠Shared election architecture for 2026

• If the SACP contests independently, this must be governed by a formal non-aggression and cooperation pact: no campaigning against one another in working-class communities; coordinate candidate deployment to prevent a divided left handing councils to reactionary coalitions.

4.⁠ ⁠Shared accountability

• Annual joint Alliance report-back to workers and communities on what was actually delivered, not only what was resolved.

It is recommended that: “The NGC mandates the NEC to conclude, before June 2026, a written Alliance Development Pact that binds all partners to a common national development mission and a coordinated approach to the 2026 elections.”

What is required now is: A developmental, sovereignty-conscious, justice-driven ideology

3.⁠ ⁠Global Upheaval: Gaza, Tariffs and a Fractured Multilateral Order

The global terrain the Alliance operates in has shifted dramatically.

South Africa’s decision to take Israel to the International Court of Justice over Gaza marked a historic moment of moral leadership, using international law to defend a people facing dispossession and mass killing. It reaffirmed a core ANC instinct: anti-imperialist solidarity grounded in the memory of apartheid.

At the same time, our stance has provoked backlash:

• ⁠pressure in Western capitals,
• ⁠threats of punitive economic measures and diplomatic marginalisation
• intensified narrative warfare painting South Africa as “irresponsible”, “corrupt”, or “captured”.

Parallel to this, the BRICS expansion, debates on de-dollarisation, and new development finance mechanisms are reshaping the financial terrain in which South Africa must borrow, trade and invest. Add to this:

• rising authoritarianism in many countries,
• big-tech driven surveillance capitalism,
• and weaponised social media platforms where foreign and domestic actors can run disinformation campaigns against movements like ours.

In short: the terrain in which the Freedom Charter’s internationalism must now operate is far more complex and hostile than the old “North vs South” narrative.

Re-emphasise that: “Palestine is our moral compass, but national development is our vehicle. Without both, our foreign policy is either loud or empty.”

Because moral authority is the last power South Africa still possesses unchallenged.

4.⁠ ⁠South Africa's Place: Non-Alignment as Development Project

Non-alignment was never meant to be “sitting on the fence”. For the ANC and its allies, it has always meant independent judgement grounded in anti-apartheid memory and the interests of the global South.

At this NGC, non-alignment must be reframed as development alignment:

• With Palestine and other struggles for justice, because our own freedom is bound up with theirs.
• With African industrialisation, because a fragmented continent remains a raw-material pit for others.
• With a fairer financial architecture, because without cheaper, more developmental finance, our National Development Mission is impossible.
• With digital, energy and food sovereignty, because a nation that cannot feed, power or connect itself will never be truly free.

This requires a far stronger, better resourced and strategically led DIRCO, capable of:

• using multilateral platforms (UN, AU, BRICS, G20) to open markets, technology partnerships and climate finance;
• defending our ICJ stance and other justice-based positions with rigorous legal and diplomatic work;
• building South–South value chains in energy, health, agriculture and digital infrastructure.

“The International Relations commission should consider mandating government to table, within 12 months, a Development Diplomacy White Paper that aligns foreign policy with our domestic National Development Mission, African industrialisation and climate justice.”

5.⁠ ⁠Narrative Warfare and the Battle of Ideas

The global right has mastered cognitive warfare through misinformation; targeted propaganda; algorithmic mobilisation.

None of this happens in a neutral information space. The ANC, SACP and COSATU are operating in an environment where:

• reactionary forces run highly professional digital campaigns,
• ⁠global media often reproduce elite narratives about “failed states” and “corrupt liberation movements”,
• and many of our own branches and structures are absent from online organising altogether.

If we treat communications as an afterthought, the story of the NGC will be written by others: as another talk-shop of a dying movement, rather than a line in the sand for renewal and development.

Alliance-wide narrative shifts needed:

• ⁠From “defending the ANC” to “defending the people’s right to development and safety”.
• From nostalgia to concrete stories of where working-class people win: a fixed clinic, a reclaimed construction site, a protected whistle-blower.
• From once-off press statements to ongoing digital storytelling, led by youth but grounded in real community victories.

Remember: “If we are not visible where people live and where they scroll, we are not leading.”

“We do not only need a progressive programme; we need a progressive signal that can cut through the noise.”

6.⁠ ⁠Suggested Actions points:

6.1.⁠ ⁠Alliance Development Pact for 2026:

A written, time-bound pact clarifying how the ANC, SACP and COSATU will coordinate in elections, governance and mass work, even where they contest separately.

6.2. ⁠Justice-Based Multilateralism:

Reaffirm and operationalise South Africa’s ICJ and Palestine positions as part of a broader agenda for reforming international law and multilateral bodies in favour of the global South.

6.3. ⁠Strengthening DIRCO and State Capacity:

Commit to rebuilding diplomatic, trade and economic diplomacy capacity, with clear targets on investment linked to industrial and skills outcomes at home.

6.4. Protection of Whistle-Blowers, Activists and Human Rights Defenders:

Call for a regional and international initiative, led by South Africa, to defend whistle-blowers and activists who expose corruption, environmental crimes and human rights violations across the continent.

6.5. ⁠Coordinated Narrative Strategy:

Establish an Alliance Battle of Ideas Council to align messaging on development, sovereignty, Palestine, BRICS and workers’ struggles, and to train a new cadre of digital communicators

7. Conclusion

A divided left in a broken world is a gift to conservative reactionaries. A united, development-driven Alliance can still bend history towards justice but only if we move from resolutions on paper to a pact in practice. The world is reorganising.

The question is whether the ANC will reorganise its strategy or its obituary. If this NGC does not produce ideological clarity and a united development mission, the Alliance will drift, the right will rise, and the people will walk away.

If it does, we can rebuild power at home, in the region, and in the world. Let’s put a line in the sand…

* Faiez Jacobs is a former  Member of Parliament, founder of The Transcendence Group, Capetonian, Activist, and Servant of the People.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.