COSATU faces growing pressure as ANC-SACP rivalry ahead of local elections forces affiliates to reconsider political support while preserving federation unity. Picture: Kgaogelo Magolego
COSATU finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place ahead of the November local government elections, in which its alliance partners, the ANC and SACP, are set to contest against each other for the first time.
COSATU briefed the media in Johannesburg, where it indicated that affiliates may have to decide which party they are going to support.
COSATU president Zingisa Losi called for patience as the federation struggles to make a choice.
“Firstly, the unity of the federation is sacrosanct. The unity of affiliates within it is important. And so every union has a responsibility to converse this discussion within itself and within the federation and the unions.
“And we have set ourselves a path that takes us to the 15th National Congress, where this discussion will be on the Congress debate floor, where unions will then have a thorough discussion on this issue,” said Losi, effectively deferring the discussion to the federation’s upcoming elective conference.
Losi said COSATU wanted to avoid dividing its affiliates, which are spread across various sectors.
“This federation must not be divided on the basis of whom we are going to choose, because there are issues affecting workers that are central and important, as you would have seen in the statement when we were also taking stock from 2022.
“The challenges confronting workers in the private sector and the shopping sector require workers to be united beyond COSATU. We have a responsibility to unite workers across where they are organised,” she said.
She added that even at the Congress, tensions between the ANC and the SACP would not top its agenda.
“And so this issue must not be the issue when we get to the 15th National Congress. It is just part of the discussions of the 15th National Congress.
“And so, this discussion, we don’t want to pre-empt it or what the outcomes will be.
“We would allow Congress, in the spirit of unity of workers, to engage on it. How then Congress will resolve it, I hope you will all be there. We will all then have to deal with what would have been the outcomes,” said Losi.
The federation’s first deputy president, Mike Shingange, said the federation had learned from previous experiences that it was not wise to prematurely take a position on political issues.
His comments appeared to refer to divisions among affiliates over who should lead the ANC ahead of its 2012 Mangaung conference, which ultimately contributed to the expulsion of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA).
Source: https://newsnote.co.za/cosatu-in-a-catch-22-amid-alliance-fallout/