Johannesburg - The ruling ANC has been captured by a capitalist class and communities say “enough is enough”.
This was the essence of Saturday’s Gauteng launch of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA’s (Numsa) United Front to fight working class struggles.
The Front will be launched nationally in two weeks.
The Gauteng leadership of the Front was expected to be announced today.
“Enough is enough and as Numsa we are not going back on our 2013 (special national congress) resolutions. The working class in the ANC has been swallowed. The glorious ANC has been captured by the capitalist class,” said United Front national convenor, Dinga Sikwebu.
The policies and programme of action were due to be knocked out on Saturday. Sikwebu said the Front was being established because Numsa was frustrated with having to lie to its membership about the lack of progress among the poor in the country.
“The reason why (we’re launching the Front), is that as a union, we were tired of going back to our people to tell them lies. We were tired as a union to say to people ‘There is a better life that is coming when the better life is disappearing into the sunset’.”
Numsa had abandoned attempts to influence the ANC and tripartite alliance to adopt policies which were pro-poor.
“That has failed… instead of swelling the ranks of the ANC so that the ANC may be working-class biased, the time of a new alternative has arrived. So they can expel us from Cosatu, even if they dismiss us, our unashamed position is that ‘Enough is Enough’ and, as Numsa, we are not going back on the 2013 resolutions.”
Numsa has repeatedly said the United Front will not be a political party, with plans afoot to launch a Movement for Socialism to contest elections.
Earlier, political analyst and businessman, Moeletsi Mbeki, said there had been a process of de-industrialisation in the country which was “one of the biggest causes of poverty” in South Africa.
He said de-industrialisation was responsible for the unemployment rate of 40percent as well as millions of people going to sleep without food.
Independent Media