Johannesburg - Pressure is mounting on the ANC from its alliance partners to act decisively following its dismal performance at the local government polls, with Cosatu now saying it is open to discussions on an early elective conference for the party.
In an assessment of the state of the ANC, members of Cosatu’s central executive committee (CEC) meeting said the ruling party could no longer claim to act as a unitary and coherent organisation.
The ANC’s other alliance partner, the SACP, is yet to pronounce on the matter, but senior leaders said the democratic movement would have to guard against calling an early conference that further instilled factionalism in the ANC.
On Thursday, Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said the CEC was not “violently opposed” to the early conference calls, but it would continue to listen to reasons being forwarded by those making the demands.
“We have to consider the fact that the last ANC national general council’s organisational report told us that the ANC is ridden with factionalism, gate keeping and slate politics at all levels.
“The biggest challenge for the ANC is to clean and rid itself of opportunists, looters, criminals, flatterers, patrons, factionalists and hangers-on who have infiltrated, captured and ultimately weakened it,” Ntshalintshali said.
While Cosatu thus far has held back on making declarations on the ANC’s succession race, the CEC did agree that workers could not be neutral on the matter.
It was agreed that a special CEC would be held next month as the matter was urgent. The meeting would guide Cosatu in how it would engage with the ANC and SACP in upcoming bilaterals on the elections.
“The starting point is at least the ANC knows what is wrong. So we are confident about that. So they know what needs to be fixed. The question is do they have the will and the capacity to do so?” asked Ntshalintshali.
He said that while collective responsibility had to be accepted for the ANC’s poor performance at the polls, “there are warm bodies” that must be held to account. “If you look at a team, it doesn’t mean there is no captain.”
SACP second deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila told The Star that although the early conference was not on the agenda of the party’s central committee meeting this weekend, it would form part of political discussions.
Some senior SACP leaders, who did not want to be identified, told The Star that they would support this call.
Mapaila warned that there was no point in early elections if they resulted in continued factionalism in the ANC.
“For us, we will be looking at the pros and cons. There cannot be a situation where a faction wins, co-opts a few other people and it is the same situation,” he said.
The SACP wanted the ANC to conduct a deeper introspection of itself and whether it had the capacity to follow through on its promises of a second radical phase of the national democratic revolution, he added.
Mapaila said even though the SACP last year handed over a document to the ANC on what it believed needed to happen to ensure this radical phase, neither the ruling party nor the alliance had properly discussed it.
“It is critical, otherwise all our talk of transformation will be hollow. You cannot have people getting RDP houses but going hungry,” he said.
Cosatu agrees. Its president, S’dumo Dlamini, listed a number of reasons why the federation believed the ANC performed poorly in the elections, warning that if there was no action, “our necks will be chopped off”.
These included arrogant leaders, e-tolls, the Constitutional Court judgment on the public protector’s report into President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, and corruption.