Battle lines have been drawn between Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) veteran Thandi Modise and Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula as the African National Congress Women’s League prepares for a future without Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

The emergence of a black bourgeoisie in South Africa is compromising the national democratic movement, the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has charged. And there are ”forces” within the [democratic] movement not supportive of the interests of the working class.

The SACP is discussing fielding candidates under its own banner in next year’s election and will be debated at the SACP’s central committee meeting this weekend. The party is planning to assert its independence from the ANC.

The IFP’s support remains entrenched in rural KwaZulu-Natal. The results of three by-elections held in rural wards in the Midlands last week also indicate that the rival ANC has lost some of its support base.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has come up with a plan for workers to take control of the tripartite alliance and the African National Congress.

The African National Congress’s alliance partners — the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) — this week condemned the Inkatha Freedom Party’s election ”machinations” in KwaZulu-Natal, revealed in last week’s Mail & Guardian.

The government is expected to announce several packages for the benefit of the poor and the unemployed after the Cabinet lekgotla next week. The basic income grant (BIG) is not among the benefits to be announced.

The South African Communist Party wants to unite white workers into a broad labour front and, as a first step, has held a ground-breaking meeting with Solidarity, the politically conservative workers’ federation.

Rival factions within the Inkatha Freedom Party clashed heatedly over whether the IFP should remain in the national government at the party’s national conference last weekend.