OWN CORRESPONDENT AND ELLIS MNYANDU, Johannesburg | Wednesday
ORGANISED labour in South Africa has uncovered the deepest cracks yet in the ruling alliance with the African National Congress (ANC) government, saying it would not be reduced to “rubber-stamping” ANC-formulated social and economic policies.
“The relationship is dangerously undefined. Government takes decisions without effective alliance participation,” Cosatu General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told the federation’s annual congress, saying the alliance faces collapse unless labour is consulted on important policy issues.
Vavi is the first key member of the alliance – which involves the South African Communist Party (SACP), the ANC and organised labour – to openly state that the arrangement formed before the 1994 ballot that ended apartheid might collapse.
Vavi represents more than 1.8 million workers in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
“Either there must be a qualitative shift in its operations, which involves it in a meaningful participation in policy formulation, or it risks collapse,” Vavi said in remarks in a congress discussion document.
A political analyst said Vavi’s comments signified Cosatu’s need to reaffirm its independence.
“This indicates to me that COSATU is no longer prepared to go on with this alliance unless there are some concrete commitments on how they fit in with the government’s policy formulation,” said Shaun Mackay, a political analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank.
Friction has increased since 1996, when President Thabo Mbeki’s ANC government began adopting conservative fiscal and monetary policies.
SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande told the congress that alliance partners needed to be guided by a common programme if they hoped to drive post-apartheid South Africa’s transformation.
“None of the key challenges of the national democratic revolution in the current period can be achieved without a strong, coordinated and functioning alliance,” he said. “An alliance is not a love affair based on sentiment and emotion,” he added.
Mbeki is trying hard to defuse the tensions and in his address to the congress this week he blamed racist forces for trying to divide the alliance.
Cosatu President Willie Madisha blamed discontent on the government’s macro-economic policy, proposed labour law amendments, privatisation and Mbeki’s stance on HIV/AIDS.