Time to focus on real issues, Vavi says
2012-05-31 21:34
Johannesburg - Cosatu will turn its focus inwards instead of worrying about leadership battles in the ANC, general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Thursday.
"Now our focus is to get Cosatu... to focus on our real issues," he told reporters in Johannesburg.
"If we can't do that, we'll kiss the whole revolution goodbye."
These real issues were unemployment, poverty and inequality.
Vavi admitted that the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) had been "defocused by pre-early campaigning for Mangaung".
He was referring to the African National Congress's elective conference to be held in Mangaung, in the Free State, in December. The previous conference was held in Polokwane, in Limpopo.
"Some fellows started campaigning as soon as they left Polokwane," he joked.
If the focus on leadership battles continued, Cosatu could become an "organisation that's eating itself up".
Cosatu would hold its 11th National Congress in September under the theme "Strengthen Cosatu for total emancipation".
Vavi said the theme recognised that Cosatu had been affected by the kind of politics centred on leadership battles.
The congress "will be expected to make a more rigorous assessment, look critically at the trade union movement itself.
"Our priority is not going to be who's going to be the next leader [but rather to] address massive challenges."
The congress would discuss what progress had been made in implementing Cosatu's "2015 Plan" - officially called "Consolidating Working Class Power for Quality Jobs - Towards 2015", adopted in October 2003.
Vavi said South Africa's second decade of democracy had not been successful because of high unemployment, particularly among the youth, while inequality widened and there were around 120 service delivery protests a year.
"Unless Cosatu leaders and its members adopt a new mindset, unless every cadre of the movement adopts a new mindset, our national democratic revolution is in danger of being derailed," Vavi said.
- SAPA
