The ANC’s left-wing allies are working on a succession plan that will, if fully implemented, propel more trade union and communist leaders into top leadership positions in the ANC by 2012.
But President Jacob Zuma remains central to the left’s project — the plan envisages a second presidential term for him.
The longer-term upshot would be heavier pressure on the government to shift macroeconomic policy in line with the left’s demands on issues such as inflation targeting, heavier taxation of the super-rich and state intervention to moderate the strength of the rand.
ANC members and their affiliates have been barred from talking publicly about succession, so the 10 alliance leaders interviewed by the Mail & Guardian insisted on being anonymous.
Phase one of the plan kicked in when Fikile Majola, the Nehawu general secretary, was re-elected to the position last week, setting himself up to take over from Zwelinzima Vavi as Cosatu general secretary when the latter steps down in 2012.
Senior Cosatu leaders said that Majola’s re-election, after he had said he would not stand for another term, was the strongest indication yet that he was being groomed to take over from Vavi.
Last year he rejected an ANC nomination to join Parliament as an MP so that he could complete his term at Nehawu.
Frans Baleni, the boss of the National Union of Mineworkers, was previously seen as Vavi’s successor but unionists fear Baleni’s close relationship with ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe will result in “handing the organisation to the ANC”.
The other contender for the Cosatu general secretary’s post was Irvin Jim, the Numsa general secretary, but it was decided that Jim should remain in his current post.
Although some in Cosatu are pressing for Vavi to be elected to the ANC’s “top six”, others want him to replace Blade Nzimande as the South African Communist Party general secretary.
Unhappiness about Nzimande’s preference for his government job as higher education minister recently prompted a Cosatu central executive committee resolution calling for him to return to the SACP head office.
According to an SACP leader, Nzimande responded to Cosatu’s call by arguing that it was important for leftist leaders to be in the Cabinet to influence policy. Yet his detractors on the left say he has failed to push a leftist agenda in the government, as he tends to side with the “nationalists” in the ANC.
Cosatu is also unhappy with the SACP’s “passive” role during the public-service strike.
Ongoing horse-trading has seen Nzimande removed as the preferred candidate for the post of ANC deputy president, insiders say, although Nzimande insists he has no interest in the position.
Even Fikile Mbalula, ANC leader and deputy police minister, was recently quoted saying Nzimande “wants to be deputy president”.
Malesela Maleka, the SACP spokesperson, hit back: “Comrade Blade never had such ambitions. These allegations are made by people who want to defend their reason for campaigning as an answer to their project. He distances himself from these claims and calls on other leaders to do the same.”
Mantashe told the Nehawu congress that Vavi should be redeployed by the ANC to a “suitable” position. His comments hit a nerve among some Cosatu leaders angered that he was telling the labour movement what to do with its leaders.
One union leader said that Mantashe later wriggled off the hook by telling unionists that the media had “misquoted” him.
It is believed that Zuma’s staunch supporters on the left want Motlanthe out of the top six because he is suspected of working with the ANC Youth League on a campaign for a new leadership in 2012 that would see Zuma being dropped as president.
Although labour leaders are united in believing that Zuma should top the list for the ANC leadership beyond 2012, the union rank and file appears far less supportive. Particularly, public-service union members, in the wake of the public-service strike, have grave objections to both Zuma and Motlanthe.
Cosatu’s succession plan forms part of the federation’s long-term aim to “swell the ranks of the ANC”, a provincial union leader said.
The leader said that putting more Cosatu leaders in government would make little difference.
“Obviously that strategy has not worked for us. The government says all kinds of things in public, but when it comes to policy, it’s doing different things.
“The new plan is to go into the ANC and let the Cosatu leadership become the ANC leadership to ensure it adopts and implements our policies.”
Key for Cosatu is an election pact between the labour movement and the ANC to ensure that labour benefits more directly from an ANC electoral victory.
“We can’t get them to honour informal agreements for our support. There is now a general mistrust of the ANC,” said the union leader.
Patrick Craven, the Cosatu spokesperson, refused to comment, saying: “We are not going to comment on the succession debate. We think the issue has to go through the relevant processes in the ANC.”
Another unionist said the long-standing proposal of a workers’ party under the leadership of the SACP would once again come up for discussion in 2012.
Past research has shown little support for the SACP as a separate political party. But some in the alliance believe that feelings on the ground have changed and new research will be commissioned before 2012 on whether such a party could work. Forming a breakaway party is a long-range plan that would kick in if the planned seizure of the ANC leadership does not bear fruit.
“For now we are on this crocodile and we can’t get off without our legs getting bitten off,” the union leader said.
A Cosatu leader in KwaZulu-Natal Zet Luzipho said that people should be careful when talking about leadership issues at this early stage.
“Leadership is not static and life in the trade unions is very fast,” he said. “If you talk about leadership, if you show your preference now, next week things might be different.
“None of us must start talking about leadership. It’s not how you start the marathon, it’s how you finish it.”