By Christelle Terreblanche and Siyabonga Mkhwanazi
Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP) were repositioning themselves to drop their support for Jacob Zuma should he be charged with rape, analysts believe. But he is not ditched yet.
The alliance partners have in the last week stated after high level discussions that they have never backed Zuma, the ANC deputy president, as their preferred succession candidate.
Political commentators believe it was clear from the widespread wearing of "Zuma for president" T-shirts and the strident support demonstrated at ANC executive meetings and during Zuma's court appearances in connection with corruption charges that he had been their choice for the highest office in the land.
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On Sunday the SACP declared after its two-day central committee meeting in Johannesburg that it still supported Zuma in the "difficult period" he was facing in his capacity as ANC deputy president.
Addressing a media briefing, the SACP's secretary-general Blade Nzimande said: "This support was never understood by the SACP to be support for a presidential succession campaign. Nor have we ever understood this support to be factional, or to be directed against any other grouping within the alliance."
Cosatu took the same stance after its central executive committee meeting last week.
Zuma is expected to make a statement on Tuesday about the rape allegations against him - brought by a 31-year-old family friend - while the police yesterday refused to respond to questions over Sunday newspaper reports that the police have recommended that Zuma be charged.
Political analyst Steven Friedman said the seeming turnabouts by Cosatu and the SACP "cannot be seen as them abandoning their support" for Zuma at this stage, but was more a case of them "keeping their options open".
"They don't want to be seen as ditching their candidate if and should they find themselves in a position that makes it impossible to support him", Friedman said.
He said the insistence of both organisations that there was a conspiracy against Zuma in the ANC showed that "they are not backing down on their support for him completely".
Professor Amanda Gouws, political scientist at Stellenbosch University, too believed the alliance partners were "repositioning themselves should they have to drop Zuma over the rape charges".
- This article was originally published on page 4 of Cape Times on November 28, 2005
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