by Natasha Marrian, 07 January 2016, 05:56
FRENEMIES: Former Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi, President Jacob Zuma, and Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini in happier times. Picture: GCIS
WITH alliance problem children - Zwelinzima Vavi and the National Union of Metalworkers - firmly out the way, the assumption was that it would be smooth sailing ahead for relations between the African National Congress (ANC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP).
Wrong.
The latter half of last year saw the deep rifts in the alliance once again spill over into the public domain - this time with the SACP, once President Jacob Zuma’s most ardent backers, in the cross-hairs.
And as its partners prepare to attend the ANC’s anniversary rally on Saturday, the alliance is at its weakest since Mr Zuma sailed to victory in Polokwane in 2007.
Cosatu and the SACP made it clear on Wednesday that they continued to support the ANC - a necessity as the party faces a tough local election later this year. Both Cosatu and the SACP were also adamant that the way the alliance worked, or did not work, had to change.
"We are not junior partners; we cannot continue treating each other as such," says Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini.
The SACP and Cosatu want the promised "radical economic transformation" to come to fruition, yet have seen and heard nothing but rhetoric since the party’s Mangaung conference in 2012. However, their expectations have to be balanced with a tough economic climate in which the government has little room to manoeuvre. For instance, Cosatu is expecting the ANC to announce that a national minimum wage will be implemented this year, as part of the party’s birthday message on Saturday.
But disagreements with the government and business linger, with questions over its affordability and precisely how it would be managed remaining unanswered.
Cosatu is also expecting Mr Zuma not to sign into law legislation dealing with retirement reform - a proposal that was unanimously agreed upon by the ANC in Parliament.
The SACP, for its part, is through with "slogans" on radical economic transformation and wants a greater say over the selection of councillors ahead of this year’s municipal elections. But its major gripe, highlighted as it commemorated the life of stalwart Joe Slovo on Wednesday, is corruption.
Deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila, in an interview on SAFM, said the ANC has always had prominent families in its midst, citing the Tambos, Sisulus and Mandelas as examples. But Mr Zuma’s friends, the Guptas, have taken this to a new level.
"They never wanted to control the direction of our movement like the Guptas are trying to do," he said. "... we won’t let the Guptas control our revolution."
The SACP has found itself under siege from a powerful factional bloc in the ANC aligned to Mr Zuma and the Guptas that includes the premiers of Mpumalanga, the North West and the Free State - who in their own provinces have all been decidedly anticommunist.
Mr Dlamini says Cosatu and the SACP raised some of the issues causing rifts in the alliance at a meeting with Mr Zuma shortly after his ill-fated appointment of MP Desmond Van Rooyen as finance minister late last year.
Without going into detail, he says the meeting marked a positive start to getting relations back on track.
Mr Vavi had a similar meeting with Mr Zuma in 2010, when he highlighted problems in relations, but they were never tackled and the former Cosatu general secretary subsequently saw some of his erstwhile closest allies turn against him thereafter, culminating in his expulsion.
Whether Mr Dlamini and the SACP’s concerns will be dealt with differently remains to be seen. The concerns centre on the way the allies "treat each other" and a lack of consultation on issues affecting the working class.
When late last year, former president Kgalema Motlanthe said the alliance was dead - that they were no longer three organisations, but one - the partners were quick to respond.
However, it was as if he spoke by premonition: a month later, Mr Dlamini in his role as an ANC NEC member was among ANC leaders at a media briefing welcoming the appointment of Pravin Gordhan’s return to the national treasury.
The next day Cosatu issued a statement describing Mr Gordhan as a "neo-liberal priest", who was "not a friend to the working class".
While his organisation may oppose an ANC decision, Mr Dlamini was bound by it through his ANC role - clearly one organisation leads the alliance and perhaps a time will come when only one will exist.
http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/politics/2016/01/07/unfulfilled-promises-characterise-alliance