The Cosatu and ANC alliance will still survive

Picture : Itumeleng Motsisi

Predicting the end of the alliance between the Cosatu and ANC is a popular pastime among commentators. It is likely to remain so for a long time.

The Cosatu's protest march early in march, reports that the leaders of the ANC are angry towards what Zwelinzima Vavi claim that "economic apartheid" is still in place and  Vavi's insistence that he will not be a candidate for the ANC's national executive, have been seized by reporters who have been convinced that this time the alliance is falling apart. Like everyone who has predicted this before, they are likely sure to be dissapointed. Those who claim the alliance may not survive have short memories, for nothing has happpened to Cosatu's relationship with the ANC now which has not happened before.

There have been other stayaways in  protest at the government actions and other heated exchanges between the two.

Vavi's unwillingness to serve on the ANC's executive is not new-he took the same stance at Polokwane five years ago, because he said he wanted to devote his energy and time to represent workers. Nor are the unionists saying anything that suggest they want to separate from the ANC. The unionists know they need the alliance with the ANC because without it, relatively union-freindly labour laws might not survive.

Yes, Cosatu has again reminded us (people) that it can mobilise tens of thousands. But the ANC knows that it cannot do that often enough to force it and the government to shift positions. It retains protection for unions and their members because it want to keep the allliance partner, not because it is scared of stayaways.

Mr  Jacob Zuma and COSATU leader,

Mr Vavi at the conference meeting

held in Pretoria

Apart from that, unionists and most of their members see themselves as part of the ANC family, as does the ANC itself. So this round of conflict is, like the previous ones,not about whether Cosatu should stay in the alliance. It is about who call for the shorts in the allliance. This has been reality since it came up with the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) before the first democratic elections in the hope that this will force an ANC government to implement union and  worker-friendly policies.



Battles within the alliance are often about the real differences of  opinion, over what the ANC should be. Part of this is about policy-in particular on how much  should be done to alliviate poverty and inequality. Until that happens, the kind of tensions we have seen in the past will still continue.