Affiliate unions back SACP in bid to contest elections

COSATU’s big affiliates have lauded the SACP for deciding to contest elections in Metsimaholo local municipality this month, giving the clearest indication that some workers are ready to dump the ANC in 2019.

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) and Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) threw their weight behind the SACP, saying the ANC did not have a natural right to lead the tripartite alliance.

Various political parties are gearing up for the November 29 by-elections in Metsimaholo in the Free State, one of a number of municipalities where the ANC was dislodged by the DA when it formed coalitions with other opposition parties, before it was dissolved in July.

In a leaked report prepared for its upcoming central committee meeting starting today, the police union paints a grim picture of the ANC’s prospects at the polls in 2019 owing to its continuing loss of electoral support.

The committee is the union’s highest decision-making body between conferences, and will be addressed by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and SACP boss Blade Nzimande.

The Popcru report says the SACP’s decision to contest will provide a good indication of how the party might perform if it contests in 2019.

“The SACP has been doing the groundwork in Metsimaholo, assessing which of the 21 wards it would target. This can serve as a litmus test before the contentious 2019 national elections, on which the ANC’s lifeline hangs – given increasing indications that the party’s grip on power is sliding,” the report says.

Political cohesion within the ANC-led alliance has reached an all-time low, as components of the alliance and some within the governing party point fingers at President Jacob Zuma’s leadership and state-capture allegations.

Popcru, once an ardent defender of Zuma, has taken issue with the changed character of the ANC and of the alliance.

“All three were led by self-sacrificing and unselfish revolutionaries. They were led by people who were willing to lose their lives, limbs and liberty for the liberation and freedom of all South Africans,” the report says.

The union says the ANC’s loss of power in three metros in last year’s local polls has brought its character into question.

“It is as though the movement is constructing itself to be irrelevant and inappro- priate to the future of South Africa.

“And indeed, if the ANC continues to ignore its people, it faces becoming an irrelevant organisation,” it said.

In its own document, Nehawu says Zuma’s second term has reversed the gains made by the ruling alliance and threatened to erode the loyalty given to the ANC.

Referring to the SACP’s resolution to contest state power, Nehawu said the ANC had no natural right to lead the alliance.

ANC national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa noted that a move by the SACP to contest state power would have dire consequences, not only for the ANC but for the alliance as a whole.

He said the ANC had engaged the SACP at the recent Alliance Political Council, and that there was renewed hope of addressing the matter.

“We agree that the relations within the alliance are at an all-time low, but none of us should destroy the alliance,” Kodwa said.