Johannesburg – The governing African National Congress should not form a coalition with the Democratic Alliance at hung metropolitan municipalities, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Friday.
General secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said the DA “remained the biggest threat” to the aspiration of workers and black people.
“Cosatu wishes there could be a re-run and in the case where ANC decides to enter into coalitions, we want the ANC to only enter into principled coalitions…the message from Cosatu is that we do not expect the ANC to work with the DA,” Ntshalintshali told reporters in Johannesburg following an urgent meeting to assess the 2016 Local Municipal election results.
“We do not want a coalition with racist political parties that are there to defend the interests of white monopoly capital. We will be calling and lobbying that there should not be a coalition with DA.”
Ntshalintshali said his organisation did not discuss the other opposition parties with whom the ANC was engaged in coalition talks.
Labour brokers would have a field day should such a coalition take place, putting millions of jobs in jeopardy, he said.
“If the DA and their labour broking friends have their way, million more workers will be plunged into poverty and despair, and we will be on our way to a national catastrophe. This is the same party that went to Parliament and moved a motion on the Bill calling for the scrapping of the right to strike.”
Although the party led with the most votes nationally, it lost ground in key metros such as Tshwane and the Eastern Cape’s Nelson Mandela Bay. The governing party failed to receive an outright majority in Johannesburg, Mogale City and Ekurhuleni. With no outright majority attained by the parties in the metros, coalitions have to be formed in order to govern.
The ANC top leadership is holding a national executive committee (NEC) meeting in Irene, Pretoria to dissect the outcome of last week’s election results.
Ntshalintshali said there should be no “finger pointing or blaming of individuals” over the ANC’s performance but that an “honest introspection” was needed by the alliance partners. Cosatu wanted an urgent alliance meeting, he said.
“We’re calling for an urgent alliance meeting to develop a shared perspective on the challenges and the way forward. The ANC as a people’s movement must revisit what it stands for and remain true to its own mission,” he said.
African News Agency