The Congress of South African Trade Unions called a special congress this week to debate the challenges of the second democratic elections. Its central committee prepared this paper, titled Consolidation of Cosatu for the New Millennium, for discussion at the congress
This special national congress presents a unique opportunity to Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) structures and its entire cadreship to take stock of the prevailing challenges in order to reposition the organisation and the entire movement to meet the challenges of the new millennium.
Central to meeting these challenges will be our ability to effectively address weaknesses we have identified.
What we need is both the political will and the capacity to vigorously implement our decisions in a manner that makes a difference to the lives of our members and the working class as a whole.
The election results should be analysed within the context in which it was held. Over the past five years the opposition parties and their cohorts in the media tried in vain to be the representatives of the majority in every respect.
The leadership of the African National Congress/South African Communist Party/Cosatu alliance was projected as uncaring, corrupt, and having failed to deliver on the needs of the poor. To a large extent, the people who occupied the streets were reactionary forces protesting against progressive legislation. An orchestrated and systematic campaign was launched and leaders of the movement were vilified as reckless and out of step with the realities of our time.
Our own internal survey conducted in mid- 1998 showed a massive drop in ANC support. A perception was developing that things have not changed since the first democratic elections.
The election campaign helped the democratic movement to reconnect with its constituency in a very dynamic way.
Overall, the alliance ran an effective election campaign. This campaign was characterised by an honest articulation of shortcomings and the challenges facing our democracy. It was admitted that, while immense progress has been made in meeting basic needs and the creation of conditions of relative peace, major challenges remained in other areas such as the creation of jobs and in tackling corruption and crime.
The reconnection with the masses exposed the leadership to some of the cold realities. While a greater majority of blacks enjoy the rights in the Constitution and progressive legislation, a bigger number of workers and their families are still trapped in the worst forms of racist humiliation on farms and in domestic employment.
The run-up to the election exposed the silent brutality that continues unabated on farms. This includes the denial of freedom of political activity and access by trade unions, the confiscation of identity documents and the denial of the right to vote.
The ANC election victory is equally a victory of Cosatu, the SACP, South African National Civics Organisation, South African Students Congress, Congress of South African Students and the rest of the democratic movement.
Taken in the context of increasing demoralisation in recent years, the campaign also tells us that we move away from our traditional mass constituency at our own peril. The closing of the gap between the leadership and the masses through these elections should be consolidated.
We must not allow a situation where our connection with the masses is limited to six months before elections. We must find a practical way to take forward President Thabo Mbeki’s call for a people-centred transformation programme.
The maintenance of this momentum also means giving more say to the ANC and alliance structures on the broad direction of the policies and programmes of the government. Interaction with our constituencies cannot be limited to downward information provision, with the role of the masses limited to being passive recipients of information.
Never again should we allow the opposition parties to be the self-appointed representatives for the concerns of our people. This role must be reinstated to the ANC branches and structures. The tendency to treat every form of mass action in pursuit of legitimate demands and /or frank criticism as part of “counter-revolution” must end. This is not in any way advocating populism or oppositionist politics. We must find a proper balance between the two extremes.
The alliance has in the past election worked more closely than it has been able to do for some time. The political hegemony of the alliance is more and more being accepted as a fact of life in the politics of the country. The noise calling for the end to the tripartite alliance has subsided.
Nevertheless, weaknesses in the workings of the alliance persist. We have no clear programme or yardstick to guide and measure success. Our analysis over the past few years has been that we have not effectively used our organisational and political strength to constantly shift the balance of forces at a socio-economic level; that while good legislation has emerged in Parliament with Cosatu participation, there has been no prior strategic planning at the alliance level; that Cosatu largely reacted to policies as they came out of ministries; and that we depended on the views of particular individuals in government, rather than on the position of the organisation as a whole.
We have now entered the sixth year of legitimate government and a Parliament composed of true representatives of the people. This means that the apartheid regime and white supremacy have been defeated.
This may be correct. But how close are we to achieving a united, democratic, non- racial and non-sexist South Africa? Are the democratic forces now in full control of the state? Have we transformed that state from one engineered to mete out repression against the majority into a machinery that serves the interests of all citizens with a particular bias to the working class and the poor?
A number of comrades correctly pointed out in the first term of democratic rule that while we were in office we had not yet achieved state power in the full sense of the term. The challenge of ensuring that we transform critical areas of the state remains immense.
There can be no doubt, however, that the appointments we have seen in the past five years in the army, the police and the public service does shift the balance of forces significantly in the direction of the democratic forces.
As we move on in transforming our country we are still faced with many constraints that we did not choose, but which are imposed by what we inherited from apartheid.
A discussion paper of the Cosatu executive committee early in 1994 pointed out: “There are many contradictions that will face us. The ANC will be subjected to a lot of demands by all sorts of interest groups. Our membership will expect us to ensure a change in their conditions of work and living standards. Employers will expect the ANC to confront us on issues such as productivity, minimum wage and accepting wage restraint. The ANC as the government of the day will have to concern itself with catering for the needs of society as the whole, including our class enemies .”
Cosatu was therefore never under any illusion that it would on all counts be plain sailing. We understood that contradictions would always be an interesting dynamic within the ANC itself due to its broad-church character that is left-oriented.
Cosatu believes that the democratic forces have the potential strength to isolate, divide and outmanoeuvre these forces opposing fundamental transformation. Otherwise we would not have ploughed huge resources and energies into constructing the reconstruction and development programme and fighting for elections.
However, the alliance has not been effectively using the lever of mass power. Increasingly the role of the masses has been confined to the ballot box.
We understand that even the thought of breaking the strategic alliance with the ANC and SACP would only serve the agenda of the strategic enemies of the working class.
The challenge is to ensure that the programme the special national congress will discuss leads into a situation where there are more practical ways of ensuring that the strategic vision we share is developed into an implementable programme of action.
If we cannot do this, Cosatu’s role will continue to be limited to a reactive, defensive and ad hoc approach to transformation.
As we debate the matter, we should reflect on one of the important questions that has led to some confusion in our ranks: who is in power? Is it narrowly the ANC, meaning the national executive committee and other ANC structures defined in its constitution? Or is it the alliance as a whole, including the Mass Democratic Movement?
It is a mistake to narrowly define the party in government as being the ANC. At the same time we can only confidently claim to be in government if we drive government programmes and direction. Currently this is not the case.
Equally, it would be wrong for us to define ourselves as being part of the government, but when the programmes we jointly agreed to do not deliver or become unpopular, we step aside and say: “That is a government programme.”
The 1993 special congress deployed 20 leaders into the National Assembly and a number of others into provincial legislatures as part of our effort to strengthen transformation.
It was, however, understood that once comrades went on to the ANC list, they were bound by the organisational discipline of the ANC, its parliamentary caucus and constitutional structures. This meant that Cosatu had no power to either direct a member on how to vote, censure them organisationally or withdraw them in the event of non-performance or indiscipline. Nevertheless, these comrades had a moral and historical obligation to represent the constituency from which they came.
This is the root of frustration and confusion on the part of both Cosatu and comrades deployed in Parliament. The tension led to uncertainty as to whether any structures of coordination, no matter how loose, violated the principle of accountability to the ANC. Conversely, without such structures, it was then difficult to facilitate an ongoing process of engagement, and two-way communication and consultation about problems of governance.
However, the perception has developed that Parliament is losing its previously robust character, and is increasingly expected to act as a rubber stamp to the executive. Too frequently, policy is rushed through Parliament without allowing MPs to hold public hearings and/or conduct research on the issues. The parliamentary schedule is packed, leading at times to a simultaneous discussion of White Papers and Bills.
This can lead to demoralisation of MPs, as they would feel that their role has been downgraded. The challenge is to find a balance and build dynamism between the caucus and the ANC national executive committee or tripartite alliance meetings. While the ANC executive is the arbitrator of policy, at the same time a space should be found to make comrades in the caucus feel that they can engage with policy meaningfully without undermining national executive committee directives.
Cosatu’s sixth national congress made a call for the amendment of the country’s Constitution so that a balance is found between a proportional representation system and the constituency system. There should be more debate within Cosatu to clarify this call further. For example, will a combination of proportional and constituency-based election systems help to address weaknesses identified in this paper with regard to its former cadres who are MPs? The alliance should also discuss this matter and find a common approach.
The alliance needs to agree on an approach to ensure accountability of comrades deployed in government. This has to address issues such as monitoring of performance, as well as mechanisms for recall where this becomes necessary.
The current electoral system means that the evaluation of comrades, if it occurs at all, tends to happen at national and provincial level with the local or constituencies’ role limited to electing or not electing at five-year intervals.
The introduction of the constituency-based system with elements of the proportional representation system would allow for greater accountability of elected comrades, including the right by constituency committees to recall non-performing MPs.
This paper has been shortened considerably. The full text is available on Cosatu’s website at www.cosatu.org.za/congress/ cong99/congress.html