Alliance is dysfunctional - Cosatu
2010-08-26 18:08
Johannesburg - The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Thursday warned that its alliance with the ANC is "dysfunctional" due to "confusion" over power.
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the trade union was seeking a "pact" with its alliance partners, the ANC and SA Communist Party, to quell the disorder.
"We have reached a stalemate on the pact and the issue of the alliance as strategic political centre. These conditions will lead to the return to the marginalisation of the alliance," said Vavi at a media briefing following Cosatu's Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting.
"We are not happy," he said.
Referring to a low-point in Cosatu's relationship with the ANC in 2001, Vavi said "the one common feature with that period is that the alliance is again dysfunctional. The centre cannot hold".
He said the problems of the alliance were being worsened by corruption and individuals using government for personal gain.
Election threat
"The emergence of a new tendency focused on taking over the ANC and using access to the state for a selfish accumulation agenda disrupted the emerging unity of purpose which has led to a paralysis in both the alliance and government," said Vavi.
Significantly, he warned that a lack of ANC action on corruption would cause Cosatu to pull back its support in the upcoming 2011 local government elections.
Vavi said that while the CEC decided to support the ANC in the elections this support would be conditional.
"We would not give the ANC a blank cheque and would refuse to campaign or support candidates known to be corrupt or lazy just because they succeeded in manipulating the ANC internal processes," warned Vavi.
He said issues of political "paralysis" were preventing a summit between alliance partners due to power struggles.
"The alliance is unable to convene an alliance summit for fear of an implosion, as a result of fundamental differences on the question of where the power lies," said Vavi.
He asked why issues important to Cosatu were apparently being sidelined within the government.
"Where is the labour brokering legislation? What happened to the national health insurance?" asked Vavi.
"Government still doesn't know if it's coming or going in the national growth strategy."
Political hyenas
Vavi also had criticism for its other alliance partner, the SACP, for its shortcomings of "visibility and capacity".
"We shall demand of our vanguard party of the working class, the SACP, that it address weaknesses we identified in our discussion including its visibility and capacity," he said.
Vavi also laid into politically connected business people, who he likened to 'hyenas', and said they were leading South Africa into a "predatory state".
"We are heading rapidly in the direction of a full-blown predator state, in which a powerful, corrupt and demagogic elite of political hyenas increasingly controls the state as a vehicle for accumulation," said Vavi.
"It has become the norm that you can't do business with the government unless you pay the gatekeeper."
Vavi singled out the recent ArcelorMittal deal, in which President Jacob Zuma's son Duduzane Zuma was a beneficiary, as "outrageous".
He said Cosatu would appeal to civil society and seek legal action to overturn the deal. Vavi argued that private business could not be expected to tackle corruption.
"Business, with all of its codes, will not fight it (corruption) when it is the only way to make profits," he said.
- SAPA