Glenda Daniels
Had the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) been invited to the African National Congress’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting when the alleged “plot” to oust President Thabo Mbeki was first discussed, the debacle, which has seriously embarrassed the government nationally and internationally, might not have happened.
An official of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) says: “This problem has happened precisely because of unresolved problems within the alliance. The alliance entitles us to make strategic decisions with the ANC but we only found out about the investigation into the three comrades through the media.
“The ANC left us out during a crisis and this has been an ongoing frustration. It could have been avoided. If there had been strategic convergence between the alliance partners, we would have said the three should not be named until there was evidence.”
It’s more than a communication breakdown, he adds. “The ANC has been consciously doing this for a long time now. It’s now serious because if the ANC collapses, we will all be affected.
“From now there will be grassroots discussions in branches before provincial congresses and the big issue will be leadership of the ANC,” he predicts. “This is part of the culture of democracy and transparency.”
Labour analyst Duncan Innes says: “Cosatu is taking a leadership role in democracy, by coming out in favour of openness. They are nipping in the bud any notion of merging state and internal politics. They are now flexing their muscles by threatening a strike over privatisation.”
But some union officials go further: “The alliance is an albatross on the working class. We need to form new alliances outside the alliance, the sort of alliances of the Eighties, and at grassroots levels,” says a Numsa official. “This is starting to happen, with the Treatment Action Campaign, the people’s budget, the Electricity Crisis Committee, the Campaign against Military Spending. We need bottom-up alliances, not top-down ones.”
A regional official of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union says the fact that Cosatu is strengthening its alliances within the community means that its position in civil society is deepening, which means that its position in the alliance will be strengthened. “The plot issue has given Cosatu leverage to criticise, engage, and become a stronger partner in the alliance.”
Unofficially many union officials and workers feel it’s not such a “bad thing” that the issue of Mbeki’s leadership has arisen. Many workers feel the tussle for leadership is real and serious. They expect that politicking, which Cosatu members will be a part of, will accelerate from branch to provincial level right up to the national conference next year.
With Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzma Vavi warning that South Africa is in danger of becoming a “banana republic” with the ANC’s apparent merging of the interests of party politics and the state, Cosatu has presented its most serious challenge to the ANC in the history of the tripartite alliance.
Last year the alliance weathered shaky relations between the ANC and the union federation. But this year Cosatu is entrenching itself deeply within civil society and sending out a message that it won’t be overlooked as a junior partner that will toe the line.
Although Cosatu called off a national strike set for March over labour relations amendments, it has now become hardline and is planning a national strike over the government’s plan to steam-roll privatisation.
Now, with the plot paranoia, battle lines are being drawn, and affiliates are becoming bolder. A South African Municipal Workers’ Union member said: “Workers are saying that it’s clearly a plot invented by Mbeki himself to protect himself from challenges, which now seems to be backfiring. Everyone here also seems to be in agreement that whether he stays or goes doesn’t really matter it won’t make any difference to the lives of municipal workers and it won’t change the moves to privatise everything.”