The long-simmering turbulence in ANC politics over the Tripartite Alliance finally has spilled over into open warfare - heralding the beginning of the end of the Alliance (ANC, Cosatu, SACP). Predictions of the collapse of the Alliance have been made in these columns, and strongly denied. Now a call to arms has been sounded not by the ANC, but by Cosatu/SACP themselves. They suggest that a campaign, led by ANC "conservatives and materialists," to dislodge them from the Alliance is already fairly far advanced (see here).
A no-holds-barred struggle between Cosatu/SACP and ANC "conservatives", if carried through to the end, would shake South Africa, whatever the outcome. It would define not only who holds power, but what course the country's economics would take - Left, orthodox, or modified orthodox. As for the "minorities" (whites, coloureds, Indians), an orthodox (or modified orthodox) probably would be a majority wish; but whether any outcome - Left or "conservative" - would give them a significant share of power is doubtful.
[Read George Palmer's letter to Jacob Zuma here - Editor]
Cosatu/SACP say they are accused of trying to "hijack" the Alliance with the ultimate intention of imposing socialism on it; that the "conservatives" want "regime change" in South Africa, and are targeting President Jacob Zuma (mainly because he has been intimidated by, and been too "permissive" to, the Left); and also Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe (who is also chairman of the SACP). The "conservatives" allegedly want to sweep out the entire six-member top leadership of the current "ANC" and install anti-Left structures in the party.
A successful anti-Cosatu/SACP coup would dismantle the Tripartite Alliance (ANC, Cosatu, SACP), and ANC "conservatives" would recapture the party and its "soul." Cosatu/SACP have been spurred into action, it appears, by the realisation that the longer the silent war continues, the more they will lose ground. Accordingly, they have formalised the approaching struggle in the Alliance (rules of engagement are unlikely - just a free-for-all). It is, therefore, Cosatu/SACP who have thrown down the gauntlet publicly, in the midst of a surge towards capturing the Tripartite Alliance and control of the state.
The Cosatu/SACP accusations are sufficiently detailed to disclose what they think is the "conservative" strategy and who the main players are: that a "realignment" has taken place in the ANC's 85-member National Executive Committee (implying a blurring of who supports whom); that a "new tendency" has emerged - to whip up a "rooi gevaar" (communist danger) and unleash anti-trade union rhetoric; and that the "conservatives" have secured assistance from black (BEE) millionaires to enable them to dispense "patronage" liberally (cash and jobs), particularly among the youth.
Cosatu/SACP have hung the label "conservative" around the neck of their opponents, although the challenge to them is understood to be much more widely based. Also, the Young Communist League in Gauteng has more to reveal: it says the ANC is trying to split the Gauteng YCL/SACP from the national YCL/SACP with a promise of launching a post-Polokwane and "pseudo-COPE left and calling it the "democratic Left." (COPE broke away from the ANC to form a new party, and has been lying surprisingly low, as if awaiting a call on what to do next).
The Gauteng YCL says the ANC strategy is to launch "a plot to derail this giant movement of our people (National Liberation Movement) into the hands of parasitic capitalists in an axis of established capital and corrupt government officials." Jobs and resources will be promised to unemployed comrades and patronage extended by "unleashing money." Some of this money will come from BEE deals and government tenders. The Gauteng YCL warns comrades to watch out for "full combat."
The national SACP predicts "rabble-rousing of sectors in distress, not least among an often alienated youth sector." Among those involved are "ambitious business people and politicians, using corruption and patronage." What the Cosatu/SACP are saying is that the black youth in South Africa are volatile and the "conservatives" are buying their support. The SACP admits the dividing lines between Alliance factions are less clear now than they were at Polokwane in 2007.
While Cosatu/SACP claim the "conservatives" are a "tiny minority" in the ANC, they admit that they will have to be fully mobilised to repel it and that they do not have "enough outright left-wing allies in the NEC and NWC" (the smaller, inner National Working Committee).
A final Alliance showdown, according to Cosatu/SACP (who are joined at the hip now) is set for 2012 when an ANC national congress re-elects Zuma as ANC president or replaces him with a new president. Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi fears a repeat of the Polokwane conference (December 2007, when Thabo Mbeki was ousted as ANC president) and another "bitter battle for leadership." If the "conservatives" become so powerful that they threaten to reverse "the gains made at Polokwane," Cosatu will not keep quiet. In various asides like this one Cosatu/SACP confess to their own vulnerabilities.
The turmoil in Black politics will not be confined, however, to ANC "conservatives" versus Cosatu/SACP, which is first and foremost a power struggle. But Moeletsi Mbeki (Thabo's brother) warns that beyond this struggle lies an even fiercer one which a "conservative" ANC government (if success - and allied to a black elite) would have to face.
In an illuminating article (November 29), Moeletsi wrote that South Africa now is "entering a new phase of conflict - between the black political elite and the masses over how to distribute state revenue between them. This struggle is commonly referred to as a struggle over service delivery which, in a limited way, it is."
Moeletsi says BEE simply "transformed (politicians) into multi-millionaires without having had to lift a finger." South Africa's largest companies...realised that conflict between the black political elite and black masses was inevitable and would probably be even fiercer than the struggle between the black masses and Afrikaner nationalism (so they ‘moved their head offices and their primary listings to London')...BEE must be abolished if we are not to tear the country apart."
Meanwhile, in preparation for the approaching contest with the "conservatives", Cosatu says (with insulting condescension) that it will launch "a massive drive to politicise workers so that we do not make a mistake of swelling the ranks with workers who have low political consciousness and who are generally politically unreliable."
Although Cosatu has some 21 affiliated unions, with a total membership of 1.8 million, it is unknown how many unionists would want to confront an ANC that presents itself as traditionalist. Also, some other unions, not affiliated to Cosatu, are hostile to it or wary of it. (The SACP claims a membership of 96,000 (paid-up?).
Interestingly, while the SACP admits to a "bad clash" with the ANCYL, it wants to make peace with it again (because the ANCYL is close to Zuma and may be a swing factor in the infighting?).
The most outspoken of the various documents doing the rounds was the one issued by Cosatu and published in these columns on November 30 (here). It sent a clear signal that Cosatu and the SACP will swim or sink together. Cosatu confirms that it must give the SACP maximum political support, but is dismayed that only 40 percent of the SACP's 96,000 members (paid up?) come from the industrial proletariat. (Another vulnerability?).
The pending infighting will also turn a spotlight on whether the Alliance was ever viable. It is a three-legged creature and each creature is different. As a political front against apartheid, the Alliance could serve a purpose, but not once the struggle had been won and the appropriation of power to the ANC ensured.
Paul Trewhela offers illuminating comment: "I expect the term ‘Alliance' became current in exile in the late Sixties as reflecting mutual help between ANC and SACP, as two banned and largely exiled organisations, especially after the ANC opened ordinary membership to all races (i.e. mainly SACP members) at the Morogoro conference in 1968. Cosatu was formed only in December 1985, in an SACP/ANC drive to recapture leadership from the more libertarian workerist ‘inzile' (internal) currents that had led the trade union revival.
"No ‘Alliance' with COSATU was possible before then. Unbanning the SACP and the ANC brought back the exiles, who very quickly imposed SACP/ANC control on the unions by a process of Gleichschaltung which drove out and marginalised the ‘inzile' workerists. I notice that recent SACP and YCL statements refer critically to their opponents in the ANC as ‘Africanists', as if to associate them with the PAC breakaway of 1958/59. "So, as I see it, the ‘Triple Alliance" did not always exist, and it will not always exist. But it suits some people to imply that it always did exist".
The contradictory nature of the Alliance is self-evident. Cosatu acknowledges "there was no unifying ideology or politics between those who imposed change in Polokwane except dissatisfaction with the previous leadership." A fellow commentator, Dr Leopold Scholtz, notes: "The problem, as I see it, is that the ANC as a ‘liberation movement' takes the view that power is its permanent due and that the opposition is simply tolerated for as long as it does not constitute any danger to the government." This applies to Cosatu/SACP, and also, it might be noted, to South Africa's minorities (whites, coloureds, Indians).
Defining the post-Polokwane "ANC" is elusive. The unknown factor at the time is both the composition and extent of the ANC. Having labelled their "ANC" opponents as "conservatives" Cosatu/SACP need to mobilise mass support to win the ensuing struggle. There is possibly a direct way of doing this: by majority vote in the NEC. Cosatu/SACP claim there is a "new tendency" in the in the NEC, but enough votes to outvote the Left?
The "conservatives" have their own cards to play. There is resentment within the ANC at the way the SACP sends its cadres into the legislatures as "ANC" (it never contests a seat in its own name), but requires them to give their first loyalty to the SACP. The "conservatives" might well try to stir up old nationalist/Africanist emotions and unleash an almost uncontrollable new mood in black politics. Physically risky, but effective. Entrenched patronage networks could also be wielded to their advantage.
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