The African National Congress (ANC) leadership was paranoid in interpreting a civil society conference as an attempt to effect regime change in South Africa, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told the SABC on Tuesday.
“I honestly don’t know what informs this paranoia on the part of the leadership. Cosatu went with the overwhelming majority of the people who participated, very clear that we are not going there to form a workers’ party or a new left-wing party or whatever,” Vavi told the broadcaster.
“Reading the statement of the ANC, I must say it’s rather shocking, inconsistent, incoherent [and] reflective of something that is not anywhere close to what Cosatu’s intentions were in convening the civil society conference.”
‘Alternative bloc to the alliance’
Vavi was commenting after ANC said the conference last week had taken an “oppositionist” stance towards the ANC-led government.
The ANC had noted that the ANC, the South African Communist Party and the South African National Civic Organisation were not invited. This had positioned the conference “as an alternative bloc to the alliance”, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe told reporters at Luthuli House in Johannesburg earlier on Tuesday.
“It’s not an opposition party, but the stance is oppositionist. And we think it’s a dangerous populist approach to disagreements and it is intending to create a crisis where there is no crisis.”
He was speaking after a meeting of the ANC’s national working committee on Monday.
The conference last week was hosted by ANC ally Cosatu, and included civil society formations. At the two-day gathering, a labour breakaway from the ANC was mooted, but shut down.
Mantashe said the ruling party did not believe the majority of Cosatu’s leaders intended to effect regime change in the country.
“… but we nonetheless caution that an action like the one of leading a charge for the formation … of a mass civic movement outside the alliance and the ANC might indeed be interpreted as initial steps for regime change in South Africa”.
Vavi’s attacks on “black political parties” and the “notable omission” of the Democratic Alliance further reinforced the conference being interpreted as a move toward a breakaway.
Mantashe said despite assertions the conference was not “anti-government or anti-ANC”, Cosatu’s failure to invite the ANC and to allow the government to respond to criticism levelled at it pointed to the opposite.
Acknowledgement of problems
Despite this, Mantashe said the ANC’s relationship with Cosatu remained “working” and “workable”.
There were disagreements, but in the end, the ruling party and its labour ally would talk to each other, he said.
Mantashe acknowledged there were problems, saying perhaps these could be attributed to an “ideological shift” within Cosatu.
“Many of these issues … old debates that were defeated in the 1980s and in the 1990s, and if they re-emerge now and they have resonance in the federation, it may point to the ideological shift in the federation itself and the shifting of the balance of forces to the extreme.
“If that happens within the federation, it will also create difficulties in the working of the alliance.”
A temporary ceasefire between the ANC and Cosatu emerged after the ANC’s national general council (NGC) in September after months of tension over the country’s economic trajectory and the ANC’s perceived soft stance against corruption. — Sapa