COSATU+walkout+narrowly+averted,+Brown+and+Ensor,+B+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 22 January 2007
=Cosatu walkout narrowly averted as Moleketi lambasts ANC’s allies=


 * Karima Brown and Linda Ensor**

BITTER ideological battles between the African National Congress (ANC) and its alliance partners erupted at the ANC’s weekend lekgotla, with Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moleketi warning the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) to stop trying to turn the ANC into a socialist organisation.

The meeting, also attended by delegations from the ANC’s left allies and directors-general, came to a head after Moleketi lambasted Cosatu and the SACP in much the same vein as President Thabo Mbeki did last year when he accused SACP secretary-general Blade Nzimande of arrogance and what he called “distorting” the history of the movement.

“Moleketi attacked Cosatu’s resolutions on the ANC and accused the SACP of ‘tailism’. He said the SACP was tailing behind Cosatu instead of playing a vanguard role and criticised the communists for not providing leadership,” said a source who attended the meeting.

Moleketi’s provocative statements almost led to a walkout of the Cosatu delegation led by general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi. This was prevented only when ANC leaders calmed them down and proposed that a bilateral meeting take place to resolve the dispute.

“After Moleketi’s outburst Vavi asked if they were at the wrong gathering, because Cosatu had understood that they had been invited to give input that would be filtered into a cabinet lekgotla starting tomorrow,” a source said.

This weekend’s fracas sets the tone for a year of intense wrangling in the tripartite alliance as the ANC prepares for its policy and elective conferences in June and December respectively.

The ANC will review the progress of its policies and strategies formulated for the future. The latest run-ins are reminiscent of the battles between opposing factions who slugged it out prior to, and at, the past ANC conference in Stellenbosch in 2001 when Mbeki accused political opponents of being “ultra left” when they opposed government’s Gear policy.

The conflict was yet another manifestation of the battle taking place within the ruling party as expressed in the fight for the next president to succeed Mbeki who is due to leave office at the end of his second term in 2009.

The support by Cosatu leaders for presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma has brought into the open its ideological differences with the ANC over economic policy. The alliance partners have called for greater focus on job creation and poverty alleviation.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A363964**

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