SACP statement on Freedom Day
SACP Communications
South African Communist Party
SACP statement on Freedom Day
Monday, 27 April 2026: - The South African Communist Party (SACP) joins the millions of South Africans in the celebration of Freedom Day, this year being the 32nd anniversary of the people’s right to vote. When we won the right to vote through the 1994 democratic breakthrough, we irreversibly placed South Africa on a path to complete freedom, creating conditions and political correlation that were inconceivable for the successive colonial governments – from Dutch settlers all the way to the apartheid regime.
While a lot of commentators and peacetime heroes have downplayed the significance of the political breakthrough of 1994, the South African Communist Party has full recognition of the historic nature and value of the victory our people secured in 1994.
With the working class at the forefront as a motive force of the National Democratic Revolution, the masses from all corners of the country, fully conscious of their revolutionary history and future aspirations, carried their fate in their hands and permanently changed the trajectory of South Africa. The exercise of the vote is not a ceremonial act performed every five years to change and recycle leaders imposed by the capitalist system. Rather, it is an opportunity for the people, particularly the working class, to control their own destiny. This includes consistently reviving their agenda for development and total liberation from the enduring legacy of colonialism, apartheid and pervasive capitalist oppression.
The liberal conception of voting and democracy assumes that voting is about perfecting the system of power as it exists by placing an exaggerated emphasis on the individual right to vote while deliberately downplaying the revolutionary collective power and potential of election to move society from one form of organisation to another. This is to associate liberalism with democracy. We reject this notion. At this time, we continue to work for revolutionary democracy and the transfer of power to the masses. Although the vote itself is not a reliable means for radical change in capitalist relations, it provides a sound basis for understanding the correlation of forces from which a revolutionary strategy for alternatives can emerge. As we mark this important day, we seek to build people’s power in the modern era.
Therefore, we celebrate Freedom Day today with full appreciation of the potential the people have to accelerate our revolutionary advance. Our marking of this important day is not a declaration of the end of the revolution. We believe that the freedom of the people in its various expressions is the foundational basis from which a new society can be imagined and indeed built through their unity and commitment to transformation.
We celebrate Freedom Day fully aware of the pervasive neoliberal agenda that is beginning to dominate the South African state, particularly within the progressive movement and the key contradictions it presents for our revolution. We are conscious that the Freedom Day celebrations do not represent the end of the revolution but new opportunities for its articulation under new and increasingly challenging conditions embodied by emboldened neoliberalism.
We call for the continued defence of our national democracy; the continued defence of the national transformation programme in all its aspects; the deepening economic unity and revitalisation of the people’s camp; the reconfiguration of the Alliance; and deepening of collective struggle against corruption and neoliberalism.