Numsa party hopes to shake up the left

The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), the largest trade union in the country by numbers, is launching its long-awaited workers’ party, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party in December but still has to decide whether to contest the 2019 election.

The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), the largest trade union in the country by numbers, is launching its long-awaited workers’ party, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party in December but still has to decide whether to contest the 2019 election.

The SACP, part of the ruling tripartite alliance with the ANC and Cosatu, is also mulling contesting the polls independently of the governing party.

Should it decide to contest the general election in 2019, the workers’ party and the SACP, which were allies before Numsa was dismissed from Cosatu, will be scrambling for the same votes to the left of the country’s political divide. The party would also take on the EFF, which has sought to fashion itself as a leftist socialist party.

Numsa’s 2013 decision to set up a workers’ party to contest elections stalled for years, mainly over disagreements regarding the ideological posture of the party. But it says it has now put those differences aside.

Numsa insiders allege that the SACP sought to block the move, arguing the new party’s logo was too similar to its own.

SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila, however, said the party was not even aware that Numsa had registered its party and has welcomed its formation.

The Numsa-linked party’s interim chair, Zanoxolo Wayile, said that the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party will hold its inaugural congress in December, when it will take two critical decisions. The first is whether to contest the 2019 election and at which level — provincial or national — and the second is the policy platform on which the party would be contesting the election.

Wayile said Numsa understood that SA did not have a shortage of political parties but felt that there was room for one which represented the interests of the “working class”.

He said the party was not “rushing to contest elections” but wanted to unite the working class. However, it is understood that its congress in December is likely to push the party to contest the 2019 elections.

What was clear however, was that the ANC had a “neoliberal agenda” and that the SACP had been co-opted and would not provide a vehicle for the working class to contest elections, he said.

He said Numsa’s political initiative was critical and the party would not rule out possibly working with parties with the same ideological outlook, such as the EFF, but has not yet entertained such decision.

Mapaila said the SACP continued in its attempts to reconfigure its alliance with the ANC, but it would hold a special national conference early in 2019 when a final decision would be taken on to contest elections independently.