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=Mbeki or Zuma, alliance will change=


 * Karima Brown and Amy Musgrave, Business Day, 10 December 2007**

Regardless of who wins the African National Congress (ANC) presidential succession race, what is clear is that the tripartite alliance will never be the same again.

This holds true even if ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma, whose main backers include the ANC’s tripartite alliance partners, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), trumps his rival, President Thabo Mbeki, next week in Limpopo.

It is not as if a Zuma presidency of the ANC will magically resolve the structural and political fault lines that have emerged in the tripartite alliance.

At the centre of the divisions are deep-seated differences over economic, political and social policy. The differences have crystallised around the government’s macroeconomic policy, especially the Gear (the growth, employment and redistribution strategy) macroeconomic policy, as well as the economic growth plan As gi-SA.

While ideological differences are hardly a new phenomenon, the management of these conflicts under Mbeki’s stewardship of the ANC has seen divisions hit an all-time low.

Cosatu and the SACP have increasingly been marginalised in the alliance, and have had very little effect on government policies.

They have also complained of an overcentralised presidency, saying Mbeki has effectively demobilised the ANC.

There have also been differences around the handling of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and foreign policy matters such as Zimbabwe.

In the event of an Mbeki victory at Polokwane, alliance relations are likely to take a turn for the worse. Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi is on record as saying that a third term for Mbeki would not be in the alliance’s interest.

Given Cosatu’s wholesale investment in a Zuma presidency, it is likely that Mbeki will further freeze contact with the union federation’s present leadership, and rather move closer to unions independent of Cosatu, with which he has already formed a relationship through the presidential working group on labour.

Although Mbeki has often insisted that the alliance should remain intact, some Cosatu leaders believe the president will move quickly to break up the alliance if he stays in control.

Next year will be decisive for both allies, as they ponder the way forward on the eve of the general election in 2009.

Both Cosatu and the SACP are bound by resolutions taken at their last conferences regarding the future of the alliance.

In terms of resolutions adopted by the two, Cosatu has put forward several options for a reconfigured relationship. They include an enforceable pact, which would see the ANC giving Cosatu a greater policy role in exchange for electoral backing.

The SACP would contest state power in elections in the context of a reconfigured alliance. This could include an electoral pact, possible quotas, stricter accountability for party members in the government, or an independent electoral list on the voters’ roll, with the possible objective of constituting a coalition alliance agreement after an election.

In the event that relations sour and the alliance disintegrates, the SACP has already begun preparations to build a party suited for electoral politics. At its last central committee meeting, the party agreed to build SACP branches in all of SA’s voting districts. Should the SACP contest elections, it would present Cosatu with a major challenge, given that the overwhelming majority of its members are likely to vote ANC. However, the Cosatu leadership, many of whom serve in the SACP’s top structures, will be torn between the two parties.

What is clear in the run-up to the ANC’s elective conference is that power in the alliance has shifted from the leadership to the membership.

This was demonstrated in the nomination process for the future leaders of the ruling party, which saw the rejection of senior cabinet ministers and national executive committee members who are candidates for the new leadership.

The left believes a Zuma presidency will usher in greater dialogue between the allies, and attempts to seek consensus. A Zuma victory would in part be due to Cosatu and many in the SACP having provided him with the organisational muscle to topple Mbeki.

While Zuma will face the same challenges as Mbeki did in the alliance concerning macroeconomic policy should the left want to extract policy rewards for its backing, there appears to be convergence among the allies on a change in some policies, including those on education, health and rural development.

This was evident at the ANC’s policy conference earlier this year where delegates accepted the need for a developmental state with a greater role for the state in economic growth.

Whoever wins, the margin by which they win, and how they handle the victory, will set the tone for future alliance relations.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A656996**

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