Workers’ May Day actions signal end of road for Zuma
The scene has been set and the ground has been laid.
No matter the support of President Jacob Zuma in the ANC’s national executive committee – which is the highest decision-making body in between the party’s national conferences – the case against the president is compelling. It cannot be ignored, not even by his closest allies.
Recent history tells us ignoring the allies – the SACP, Cosatu and SA National Civic Organisation – is a fundamental mistake, a costly lesson that the once powerful former president Thabo Mbeki learnt. Zuma is being schooled on the same issue – being rejected, humiliated and shamed by workers shouting that he must go.
Zuma has been rejected by the working class and the poor.
They are the constituency that he turned to when Mbeki expelled him from the government in 2005.
Then workers blocked any other ANC leader from addressing them except Zuma. Mbeki, however, was smart and pulled back.
It is also the workers who demanded Zuma’s return to the ANC as deputy president in 2005 during the organisation’s national general council in Pretoria.
Who can forget the South African Democratic Teachers Union conference in 2006 that demanded that they be addressed by Zuma and no one else. The workers, during those difficult times, carried Zuma shoulder high, supported, comforted him and fought his battles.
But when he ascended to power, Zuma repaid them by dividing them and splitting Cosatu.
Cosatu must take the responsibility for allowing him that much power.
However, the May Day celebrations in Bloemfontein on Monday showed that workers are no longer prepared to go to war for him.
They rejected Zuma despite Cosatu claiming that he was going to address them as ANC president and not leader of the country. The workers were clear that Cosatu had taken a decision that Zuma should step down, therefore they could not listen to him.
The workers’ actions are similar to those of opposition parties in parliament that refuse to be addressed by Zuma because they say he has violated the country’s constitution. Their actions are the beginning of the end for the president as the workers actions have indicated to others that the powerful Zuma has a crack in his armour.
He may be able to address some ANC meetings, but there are also ANC members and leaders who are very unhappy with him. They have publicly called for him to resign.
But for months workers through their unions have pleaded with Zuma to listen to them, let go of the Gupta family, unite the alliance and choose the people of South Africa over the well-connected family.
When all their pleas failed, they pleaded with him not to address them on Workers’ Day.
Arrogantly, Zuma thought he could impose himself on the workers.
The workers may just be the ticket to finally remove Zuma.