Mantashe booed as Cosatu president backs ANC in 2024 polls
Losi warns congress delegates of impact of party losing power on workers’ rights
Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi believes the ANC retaining power in the 2024 national and provincial polls is the best available option to workers.
Opening Cosatu’s 14th congress at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand, Johannesburg yesterday, Losi said the ANC might have made mistakes but the gains for workers under Luthuli House made up for this.
But it did not take long for workers to register their dissatisfaction with the ANC, when they heckled national chair Gwede Mantashe as he was about to deliver a message of support.
Workers started singing “hamba Mantashe”.
ANC leaders at the event did not want to comment immediately, with NEC member Lindiwe Zulu saying the ANC would speak about the heckling at an appropriate time.
“We are asking you nicely,” she pleaded with reporters.
Losi, however, believes the ANC is a better choice than a coalition government that would have to be formed should it get less than 50% of the vote in 2024.
“Do not be fooled by peacetime slogans of the opposition parties,” Losi told the about 2,000 delegates.
“The same opposition parties have consistently, when they are campaigning, voted against our progressive laws in parliament.
“The opposition parties have stated unambiguously they will scrap the minimum wage, they will end collective bargaining, they will remove protection from unfair dismissal, they will slash the salaries of and retrench public servants and sell all SOEs.
“We must admit in this congress that the ANC is not perfect, it has made serious mistakes.
“It is battling to cleanse itself of the demon of corruption and factionalism.
“Yet it stood with Cosatu when we demanded the constitutional enshrinement of workers’ rights.”
Under ANC rule, many proworkers laws were passed, she said.
Due to the multi-class character of the ANC, it was in the interests of workers to contest for their space within that arrangement instead of wanting a divorce from the ANC-led tripartite alliance, which also includes the SACP.
“We must help the ANC rid itself of criminal elements if it is to be saved.
“We must continue to support the SACP because its voice is critical more than ever now.
“The left axis of the alliance must be strengthened.
“Workers have sent a clear message to the ANC in the local government elections.
“If the ANC does not get its act together, we will face a repeat of the disastrous 2021 election results in 2024.
“And this is something workers cannot afford,” Losi said.
“Winning the 2024 elections for the ANC is about defending the hard-won victories and the rights of workers.
“And we cannot afford to fail.
“We have seen in the metros, a government led by the opposition will spell the end of many victories workers have achieved.”
Even if the coalition post2024 polls was still led by the ANC, it would not benefit Cosatu members as the ANC would be unable to do as it pleased without the buy-in of its partners.
“Once you go to a government of coalition, voters must know that what they voted for has been thrown out of the window.
“What will be discussed at the coalition negotiation table is about the personalities and who gets what,” she said.