Cosatu’s Western Cape provincial secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, may have lost some energy and 20kg since falling ill with stomach cancer, but he still believes the Democratic Alliance has reason to be concerned that he is the federation’s preferred candidate for Cape Town mayor.
With his cancer now in remission, Ehrenreich said he was ready for a challenge. “Workers are not getting the urgency and service they need. This is a time for a change of power. It’s an incredible honour that Cosatu believes I can make a contribution to service delivery,” he said.
“If by a stroke of luck I get in, I intend to work with the DA to make things better. We are not each other’s enemies.” Some observers believe that Ehrenreich, who is enormously popular in the coloured community, represents the ANC’s only possible chance of winning the metro.
Keith Khoza, the ANC’s national spokesperson, said the ANC’s national list committee met on Thursday to finalise its list of candidates for the post. This would be presented at the national executive committee meeting this weekend and a candidate would be chosen. DA federal chairperson Wilmot James called on Cosatu to clarify its agenda by backing Ehrenreich.
“Is it to champion economic growth and prosperity for all citizens, or to set about implementing a socialist agenda in the name of a few?” he asked this week. “Cosatu wants to tell the ANC who its Cape Town mayoral candidate should be. What is less clear are the policies it wants implemented in government.”
No ‘fat cat’
James said that if Cape Town was to grow it needed to encourage investment and create jobs. To become the city of choice for new businesses, it could not afford the “regressive socialist thinking” that defined Cosatu’s policies.
Ehrenreich, when presented as Cosatu’s mayoral candidate this week, was uncharacteristically silent and let Cosatu’s Western Cape chairperson, Jan Kotze, do all the talking. But he wrote on his Facebook site that he had no interest in being a “fat cat mayor”.
“I pledge I will not take the million rand salary. I only want to be paid a mechanic’s salary and stay in a township, which is where I am,” he wrote. “The manifesto and priorities will be determined by the movement and the people, but they will have to align with our private virtues of solidarity and prioritising working families.”
Ehrenreich told the Mail & Guardian that Cosatu had always taken part in the ANC’s list processes and his case was no different. Ehrenreich joined Cosatu as a shop steward 25 years ago. “My health pales in comparison with the desperate needs of our people,” he said. “My priority has been to get better. I had six weeks of chemo and radiation, but I was lucky because they found it when I went in for another procedure and before it could spread. I am again ready to make a contribution.”
The M&G could not establish who else is in the running. Contacted at Luthuli House on Thursday, ANC elections head Ngoako Ramatlhodi said candidates were under discussion, but things were “chaotic”.