/ 13 September 2017

ANC alliance’s current operating model must change – SACP and Cosatu

Cosatu says some of the disruptions at May Day rallies on Monday reflect workers' anger toward an increasingly factionalised ANC.
Cosatu says some of the disruptions at May Day rallies on Monday reflect workers' anger toward an increasingly factionalised ANC.

The ANC’s alliance partners in Gauteng are calling for a reconfigured alliance. The announcement was made by Cosatu and the SACP during their joint press briefing on Wednesday at Cosatu House in Braamfontein. The SACP and Cosatu in the province held bilateral meetings on Monday where the two alliance partners resolved to re-evaluate the alliance.

“We have therefore resolved that as part of our principled and profound resolutions on the call for a reconfigured alliance, and as part of a practical giving effect to this principle, we should, as a matter of urgency, launch our election campaign in the province,” SACP provincial secretary Jacob Mamabolo said.

Mamabolo said the two partners had resolved to commence immediately with their Qina Msebenzi/Tia Mosomi election campaign aimed at mobilising workers to vote. This, he said, constituted a direct way forward towards a reconfigured alliance.

In July this year, the SACP announced that it would be contesting the national elections in 2019 on its own. However, the party in the province said on Tuesday that it would be campaigning for the ruling party as processes around launching the SACP’s own campaign were still being put in place.

Emphasising the need for the reconfiguration Mamabolo said: “What it simply means is that the alliance, as it is currently operating, will be changed. Its current arrangement is not equal to the challenges of this period and is, at this point, obsolete.”

He added that the balance of powers or, rather, the national leadership would establish and create processes for the reconfiguration.

Guptas current ‘strategic centre’
Cosatu provincial secretary Dumisani Dakile said current developments within the alliance created the need for a reconfigured alliance which would ensure that the tripartite alliance was the strategic centre of power and not individuals in one arm of the alliance.

“When you reconfigure the alliance, you then have to elevate the strategic centre of power, not to an individual or to an organisation, but you have to reconfigure it and give the strategic centre of power to be collective of the revolution. In this instance, it’s led by tripartite alliance,” Dakile said.Dakile said the Guptas had been the strategic centre of power and not the ANC.

“If we talk about reconfiguration of the alliance, it talks basically about who has the authority to take a decision.”

The SACP has called for President Jacob Zuma’s resignation.

It supported the motion of no confidence against him held in Parliament.

Cosatu banned Zuma from speaking at any of its events. The alliance partners back Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa in the race to succeed Zuma at the 2017 December elective conference. – News24