SIYABONGA SITHOLE
Johannesburg - COSATU general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali has characterised the relationship between the federation and the ANC as an economic disaster due to the collapse of state-owned enterprises, ad-hoc status of their relationship and other issues.
Ntshalintshali was speaking to Bongani Bingwa on 702 yesterday, a day after the federation of trade unions released its diagnostic political report which takes a hard look at the tripartite alliance and many other issues before its national congress later this month.
Cosatu said it expected more than 2 000 members from across the country to debate some of the issues contained in the report when the federation holds its congress. These include the status of its relationship with the ruling party beset by an existential crisis and issues of corruption, the country’s neo-liberal policies and a reformist economy that has failed to improve the lives of workers and ordinary South Africans.
In the report, Cosatu asks the question: “What are the strategic tasks of the working class in the current juncture of the NDR and the political economic crisis?”
Following its last congress in 2018 and the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the federation said it had been working tirelessly to correct itself and redirect its energies.
“This is in a context where we are in our alliance with the SACP, a vanguard part of the working class and the ANC, a ruling party whose decisions and effect reverberated throughout society and definitely reflects on both Cosatu and all components of the mass democratic movement, hence the critical importance of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as commonly shared programme of transformation, at all times,” Cosatu said.
On the issues affecting the alliance, the federation is of the view that there is a lack of strategic unity and cohesion between the alliance partners and particularly, the ANC as the dominant party and ruling party. Ntshalintshali also acknowledged the less than beneficial relationship between itself and the ruling party, a position also articulated in the report.
“It is true that the writing is on the wall for the ruling party as it has been decaying consistently. All that needs to be done is for the ANC to redeem itself. Historically, the party has always said it is able to come out of its slumber, but at the moment, we are not sure,” he said.
In the document, Cosatu says the functioning of the alliance is marked by ad hoc and inconsistently convened meetings which fail to recognise that SACP and Cosatu are important components of the alliance and not ANC sub structures.
“The functioning of the alliance is marked by ad-hoc and inconsistently convened meetings often only at the requests from SACP and Cosatu. In fact, there is no real and substantive consultations on the part of the ANC with other components on key policy matters. Instead, there is just a routine pattern whereby the ANC meets Cosatu and the SACP to receive their proposals and thereafter to make conclusive decisions later, outside of the alliance meetings,” the Cosatu document states.
Ntshalintshali said, these and many other issues will be debated during the four-day congress at Gallagher Estates in Midrand. Ntshalintshali did not rule out the possibility of a split should members decide that the end of the alliance has come.
“Our arrangement in the alliance is not permanent. It is based on the revolutionary needs and it is in that context that we remain within the alliance in spite of all the challenges. That issue is on the table and it will be discussed,” he said.
“The prospects for ANC renewal are uncertain and class character (and) any such renewal (were it to occur) is equally a matter of struggle. The ANC remains seriously factionalised and moral and political decay have been far-reaching. It’s future electoral prospects are uncertain with a strong possibility of achieving less than 50% in 2024.
Cosatu says the fact that the ruling party has admitted to its decay is bound to have implications for the alliance in the historical mission of the NDR.
The trade union says under the current situation, its constituency and the working class majority cannot afford to have their interests driven by other class forces.
“Our immediate strategic look and task is to resist the deepening of the neo-liberal trajectory and to fight for an alternative developmental path. Second, recognising the reformist limitations inherent in the alternative developmental state, we must combine this short-term posture with our anti capitalist agitation and ideological offensive,” Cosatu said.
The Star