African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma was greeted with a song insisting he become president as he arrived in Vanderbijlpark on Tuesday to address the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa’s (Numsa) eighth conference.
Dressed in a cool shirt for the Vaal heat, Zuma smiled and clapped as almost 1 000 delegates swayed in their red T-shirts.
”We will fetch him from Durban to come and lead us, even if they don’t agree with us,” they harmonised in a reference to Zuma’s KwaZulu-Natal roots.
When he first stepped into the hall, delegates sang ”awulethu, Umshini Wami” as he and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi were hugged by outgoing union president Mtutuxeli Tom and other officials.
Then delegates broke into their song in support of ”Msholozi”.
Staff assisting at the congress, held at the Emerald Casino, south of Johannesburg, joined the singing.
The singing temporarily halted the tension within the ANC and its alliance partners, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party, following splits between supporters of Zuma and former president Thabo Mbeki.
Numsa secretary general Silumko Nondwangu faces a disciplinary inquiry by Cosatu for being associated with the Mbeki camp at last December’s ANC elective conference.
Alliance partners typically align themselves on many issues to reach a common goal. But on Monday Tom sounded warning bells if unions were not allowed to have individual opinions, and if union leadership was chosen along factional lines. — Sapa