ANC members from around the country will gather in Durban for a five day policy review meeting on Monday with President Jacob Zuma under pressure to speed up services to the poor and knives sharpening for ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.
The ANC and its alliance partners the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) have asked those attending the national general council (NGC) to focus on policy issues and not leadership squabbles.
However, according to a Sunday Times report, the party’s provincial chairpersons have stepped in to save Zuma from a humiliating challenge to his leadership.
The move reportedly came after Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi blasted ANC leadership for having “no backbone” in dealing with Malema.
“All we want them to do is to have a backbone and implement the Polokwane resolutions. When are we going to do away with labour brokers? Why are you afraid of young kids like this?
“All we want is for our leadership to be strong and make decisions. This paralysis which is caused by young kids must come to an end,” Vavi said at a Cosatu rally in East London on Saturday.
Glimpse into the future
Political analyst Thabo Rapoo, of the Centre for Policy Studies, said the NGC could be a “window” into what would transpire at the ANC’s elective congress in 2012.
“We have seen President Zuma’s support waning in the past months,” Rapoo said. “This NGC could very well give a window into what is to come in 2012.”
During a strike by 1,3-million Cosatu-affiliated public-service workers in August, Zuma was at the receiving end of a string of insults about his three wives, his new fiancée and a child he fathered out of wedlock earlier this year.
He has also been at the receiving end of attacks by Malema, who at a rally in the Free State last week, urged his members not to follow the example of leaders who took more than one wife.
Malema’s comments followed his suggestion that Zuma’s family was amassing wealth, while the poor majority continued to live in poverty.
According to the Sunday Independent, Malema’s comments angered senior ANC members, with the party’s top structures desperate to throw him out.
Rapoo said ambitious ANC members, such as Malema, would use the NGC as a lobbying ground to garner support and test the popularity of certain policies ahead of 2012.
“It will be a testing ground, an opportunity midway from the 2007 conference in Polokwane, for the party’s ambitious future leaders to test their support among the ANC’s key constituencies and to start the party’s next leadership contest,” he said.
For business, the key topic at the NGC would be the call by Cosatu and the ANCYL to nationalise mines.
Cosatu has said the government has been too soft on the mining sector, which has failed to reach transformation targets set out in a 2004 charter.
The charter requires companies to sell 15% of their South African assets to black investors by the end of 2009, and 26% by 2014, but so far only 8,9% of mining assets are black-owned.
Cosatu has said it will push for a range of other left-leaning economic policies at the NGC, including creating a state-owned bank to cater for the poor, nationalising vital sectors, such as mining, metals and petrochemicals, a more progressive tax system, and abolishing inflation targeting.
Economists have warned that government does not have the capacity to run a new state-owned entity to oversee nationalised sectors, and that dropping inflation targeting will push inflation higher and cause workers to suffer even more.
The mining sector pays R32-billion in direct taxes and a large portion of indirect taxes, accounting for 17,3% of total company tax. The industry directly contributes 31 percent, or R218,8-billion, in merchandise exports. – Sapa