Cosatu+wants+its+members+to+join+ANC,+Thulas+Nxesi,+City+Press

City Press, Johannesburg, 24/03/2007 20:26 - (SA)
=Cosatu wants its members to join, guide the ANC=


 * THULAS NXESI**

When Cosatu calls for workers and the poor to join the ranks of the ANC – in order to exert influence over the direction of the organisation – it is asserting the historical fact that the ANC belongs to all of us.

This is not a coup, but an attempt to revive the best traditions of the national liberation movement and to ensure that the interests of the poor and the workers are not overlooked in the present stage of our National Democratic Revolution (NDR). It also emerges out of deep concern that the current ANC is groping to find moral and political direction.

It is common cause that the ANC is not a socialist party. It is a broad church which historically seeks to unite all sections of the oppressed to gain national liberation. But by its very nature – as a national liberation movement – it has always been biased towards the black majority: the working class and the poor.

This view has been undermined in the years since 1994 by economic policies such as Gear, but the traditional notion that the poor and the working class provide the motive force of our revolution is now being questioned.

Historically, the ANC was also a mass-based campaigning party. We would have to admit that outside of election times the current ANC has lost its campaigning vigour. This weakens attempts to improve the conditions of the poor and the working class.

The ANC structures on the ground should be leading and articulating the demands of the people for transformation.

Their absence led to the rise of new social movements in the late 1990s and more recently anarchic protests in the townships over non-delivery.

President Thabo Mbeki himself has warned repeatedly of the dangers of careerism and corruption within the ANC. The Strategy and Tactics document presented to the 2002 national conference of the ANC calls for a “battle of ideas, in which new values and morals that place humanism above greed and individual selfish interest need to be strongly asserted”.

And yet we have an ANC leadership dominated by business interests, and politicians and civil servants who become super-rich on the back of questionable business deals.

That is why as labour we support the present debate on the need to draw lines to separate business and public service. The proposed “cooling off period” needs to be longer than the suggested one year.

Quite rightly, the ANC and the government have pushed a programme of affirmative action.

And we have supported this programme, but with increasing reservations in relation to the actual implementation of black economic empowerment.

How does it help black workers to change the colour of their employers if the conditions of work remain the same? How does it help us in driving forward the NDR if we achieve 50% women representation in all structures and most of them are drawn from business?

Cosatu does not meddle in the internal affairs of the ANC. But we do advise our members to join the ANC and make their voices heard. Cosatu is now calling for debate on the nature of leadership in the ANC.

This is not about naming candidates, but instead opening a discussion on the criteria that should be considered in selecting future leaders. We believe that the following should be considered:


 * The class character of leadership and the ability and will to drive a programme which is pro-poor and pro-working class and is mass-based. BEE-types and candidates from big business need not apply.
 * We need unifying leadership that can unite the Alliance partners. A divided Alliance weakens the NDR and benefits only entrenched interests.

Nxesi is general secretary of Sadtu and a member of the ­Cosatu central executive committee


 * From: http://www.news24.com/City_Press/Columnists/0,7515,186-1695_2088577,00.html**

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