Left+pushes+for+pact,+Sthembiso+Msomi,+City+Press

City Press, Johannesburg, 03/03/2007 17:20 - (SA)
=Left pushes for pact=



//Fed up with the current state of their alliance with the ANC, Cosatu and the SA Communist Party are weighing their options.// **S'THEMBISO MSOMI** //looks at some of the changes being mooted//

AT a glance, it would be easy to dismiss statements by Cosatu and the SA Communist Party this week as renditions of an old and tired tune.

In fact, one commentator who attended the Cosatu press briefing on Thursday complained that the federation’s general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and his comrades were increasingly “sounding like a broken record”. After all, how many times have we heard the two organisations’ gripes with the manner in which their ANC-led tripartite alliance operates?

Yet a closer reading of the Cosatu Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the SACP Central Committee statements reveals an important shift in approach. This time the two organisations have gone beyond just complaining about their “ill-treatment” within the alliance, they are proposing concrete steps to change the way the alliance works.

The Cosatu CEC, for instance, wants a binding Alliance Pact or Alliance Minimum Platform between the three bodies. Such a pact was first mooted at the federation’s 9th national congress in September last year.

A pact would mean that the alliance is not only guided by the broad objectives of achieving what has, in the language of the congress movement, come to be known as the National Democratic Revolution.

Without such a pact, some in Cosatu have argued, the ANC’s partners are reduced to “juniors” whose importance is mainly around election time when they are expected to help the ANC win votes. Outside the election period, the SACP and Cosatu have little say in the formulation of government policies and decisions.

“The days of the blank cheque are over,” said the Cosatu CEC on Thursday. “Workers want to measure the progress we are making through a pact.”

Such a pact would include agreements on a development strategy for the country, the nature of the alliance and a deployment strategy for members of the three structures taking up positions in government and Parliament.

The latter would address issues such as the role of trade unionists seconded by Cosatu to the ANC to serve as public representatives.

“The political choices facing the federation are not comfortable but have to be confronted. If we do not achieve a breakthrough in 2007, we face the choice of the alliance continuing on this trajectory of zigzags,” warned the CEC.

But even if such a pact is signed, would it be enough to ensure that the trade union movement has a say in the running of the country and its economy? What can it do to guarantee that what is agreed upon is actually implemented at government level?

This is an important question considering that one of the federation’s biggest complaints in the mid-1990s was that it had agreed to back the ANC’s election campaign in 1994 on the basis of a far-reaching Reconstruction and Development Programme. This programme, Cosatu argued, was later “abandoned” “in favour” of a “conservative” macro-economic policy – Gear.

With these questions in mind, Cosatu has decided to go beyond merely demanding a pact with its “big brother” – the ANC – but wants to see its members play an influential role within the ruling party’s top structures.

As the ANC prepares for its national conference in December, where a new National Executive Committee (NEC) would be elected, Cosatu wants quotas introduced to ensure that “the working class” and the youth are well represented in the ANC executive.

Once such quotas are implemented at NEC level, says the union, they should then apply to all levels of the ANC, government and Parliament.

So far, the only quotas in the NEC relate to gender equality. Cosatu also wants the ratio of government and business representation in the NEC to also be open for debate.

Although “working class representation” is not something that would be met with hostility within the ANC – seeing that a discussion document formulated by the party’s chief strategist, Joel Netshitenzhe, mooted such an idea – it is likely to be treated with suspicion.

This is because some see it as “entryism” – an act in which members of a particular faction or sectarian group take up positions in another organisation with an intention of turning it to what they want. Those who argue this already accuse both Cosatu and the SACP of trying to “turn the ANC into a socialist party”. Their view is likely to be reinforced by the CEC’s remark that the “principal task of the working class” is to “recapture the ANC as a radical” liberation movement.

Opponents of Cosatu’s approach in the alliance argue that the strategy of “swelling the ranks” of the ANC is doomed to fail as the trade union movement’s “influence in the party” is often over-stated.

One senior ANC leader has pointed out that Gwede Mantashe, a close Vavi ally and the then general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, failed to be elected into the NEC at the last ANC conference in 2002 despite intense lobbying from the left. But even this leader is prepared to concede that the balance of forces may have shifted in favour of labour since then – especially considering the strong working class representation at the 2005 ANC National General Council (NGC).

It was at this NGC where Cosatu scored major victories with delegates rejecting a number of proposals that would have turned the country’s labour regime into a two-tier system with unequal rights for different sets of workers.

It was also at this meeting where the ANC rank-and-file revolted against the party’s National Working Committee’s decision to accept that the party’s deputy president, Jacob Zuma, suspends his activities within the party while trying to clear his name.

Speaking of Zuma, it is highly significant that his name is not even mentioned once in the 12-page statement. This does not mean that the federation’s support for him has waned.

It, however, indicates that the federation is taking a much broader approach to the ANC leadership debate: one that puts emphasis on the quality of the collective leadership, rather than the charisma of the individual at the helm of that leadership. In other words, Cosatu is well aware that a Zuma presidency would be meaningless to their objectives if the NEC is not dominated by leaders sympathetic to the federation’s cause.

But ahead of the ANC national conference in December, two other important gatherings are scheduled to take place this year. These are the ruling party’s national policy conference, scheduled for June, and the SACP’s national congress, which would be held a month later.

Cosatu plans to play a key role in both. Vavi said this week that the federation’s National Office Bearers have been instructed to set up task teams that would critique all the ANC discussion documents that would be released in the run up to the policy conference.

For the federation, the critical areas of debate include the new Strategy & Tactics documents which – among other things – characterises the ANC as a multi-class organisation whose task is to manage competing class interests in society.

Cosatu would also make contributions in discussions relating to the macro-economic policy, a development strategy and a comprehensive social security plan.

The outcome of the policy conference would be a major indicator of the balance of forces in the run-up to the December ANC conference.

But Cosatu’s impact in all these processes is likely to be undermined if it is beset by divisions. This week, the CEC said the divisions that characterised the run-up to its congress last year have not been resolved.

In other words, while the dominant grouping within Cosatu is planning to exert its influence within ANC structures, the dominant grouping within the ANC is doing the same at Cosatu.

The outcome of this battle for hegemony will only be clear in December, at the end of the ANC national conference in Limpopo.


 * From: http://www.news24.com/City_Press/Features/0,,186-1696_2078055,00.html**

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