OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 3.30pm.
THE government’s two partners in its tripartite alliance must not abandon the African National Congress, despite a “job bloodbath” under the leadership of their ruling party partner, the South African Communist Party said on Thursday.
SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande told the second day of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) congress that the ANC has not softened into an elitist party. He warned, however, that those “forces that want to hijack this victory (over apartheid) towards a capitalist and elitist direction must be engaged and defeated,” apparently referring to liberal elements within the government.
Nzimande’s conciliatory address to the 2200 delegates comes as the government and Cosatu are at a bitter impasse in public service wage talks and harbour differences over the state’s macro-economic policy.
“The alliance still remains the only vehicle for taking forward transformation in our country,” Nzimande insisted, referring to the ANC-SACP-Cosatu partnership which ensured victory for the ruling party in the two post-apartheid elections.
“To abandon the ANC would be to agree with those who try to present the ANC as a conservative, elite organisation,” he said. “The fact of the matter is that no single component of the alliance has the sole wisdom and power in taking our revolution forward.”
Cosatu-affiliated unions are furious with the government’s unilateral decision last week to break off wage public service wage talks and implement a 6,3% salary hike, 1% below their demand.