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The signs have been there for sometime now that South Africa’s ruling alliance now resembles the metal figure in the Biblical Chaldean King of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar’s dream: the figure had feet of iron and clay.
The latest brainwave from the African National Congress (ANC) to charge the head of the powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions, Zwelinzima Vavi, has brought relations with its alliance partners to a new low. Along with Cosatu, the ANC and the South Africa Communist Party make up the ruling alliance.
Disciplinary action against Vavi would come at a sensitive time for the ANC, just weeks after its youth leader Julius Malema was sanctioned for bringing the party into disrepute with a series of inflammatory outbursts.
Cosatu has of late been a vociferous critic of the ANC and particularly the lavish lifestyles exhibited by some in the cabinet. The labour union even called for a lifestyle audit so that the high-rollers in government can account for the source of their wealth, which it believes has been acquired corruptly.
The latest episode came about after the African National Congress (ANC) decided to discipline COSATU's Vavi for saying the union federation was concerned that senior ANC members were exploiting political connections to get rich.
He wanted Zuma to instigate investigations that Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda ran up R500 000 hotel bills in Cape Town waiting for his official residence to be ready, and allegations that Local Government Minister Sicelo Shiceka doctored his curriculum vitae.
However, it also clear that at the centre of these struggles is the battle for economic policy direction and leadership of the ANC.
Since Jacob Zuma assumed the presidency in last April’s elections, he has made it clear that he is not going to deviate from the economic policies pursued by his hated predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, disappointing his alliance partners who favour a more leftist approach.
Cosatu and SACP accuse Zuma’s administration of ‘talking left and going right’. Plans by the former to launch an alternative economic growth path last month were indefinitely shelved but its intentions are clear.
“Over the years COSATU has consistently raised concerns that South Africa’s economic policy trajectory is not responding to the need to fundamentally alter the colonial and apartheid contradictions,” said Cosatu’s Patrick Craven in a statement.
“We have noted with concern that the apartheid political economy fault-lines remain largely in place. This is manifested in the strategic areas of our economy. Structural unemployment remains extremely high, despite modest progress over the past years. Poverty continues to afflict millions, despite progress registered. Inequalities are now deeper than before. Oppression and super-exploitation of workers continues, despite government and union efforts,” he said.
Cosatu is worried that the ‘rapid casualisation of labour’ is wreaking havoc with the lives of thousands of workers, as relatively secure and well-paid jobs are being replaced by casual, temporary, insecure and low-paid forms of employment.
The labour body wants the government to adopt a ‘completely new growth path’ to transform the economy into one based on labour-intensive manufacturing industry, which it says meets the basic needs of South Africans. It accused Zuma of going back on promises made at the ANC’s 2008 national conference which ushered him into power.
“Real change was promised post-Polokwane,” said National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Frans Balen earlier, revealing Cosatu’s disappointment with the Zuma administration.
“We can’t just get promises all the time; we want to see it. Now there is a lot more engagement with the ANC, but you can’t just talk. At some point something must be done.”
Cosatu feels there are grounds for policy change. A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) suggests that the gap between rich and poor in South Africa has widened, not only between race groups but also within race groups.
This suggests that the government needs other policies besides Black empowerment to redistribute wealth. Historically, the government has used the social grant system, which has proved to be the single-most effective poverty-reducing tool with an estimated 13 million people benefitting from it. The system was expanded considerably during Thabo Mbeki’s tenure and President Zuma faces calls to expand it further, despite the increasing burden to the fiscus as a result of escalating joblessness. South Africa’s unemployment rate is estimated at 25 percent.
The report says levels of poverty and inequality continue to bear a persistent racial undertone. Researched and written by the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit at the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town, its most important conclusion is that inequality and poverty among Africans have increasingly dominated the aggregate measures.
"While between-race inequality remains high and is falling only slowly, it is the increase in intra-race inequality that is preventing the aggregate measures from declining. Therefore policy initiatives that address the increase in intra-racial inequality are recommended, rather than those focused solely on redistribution between inter-racial population groups."
The report also said income inequality in South Africa increased between 1993 and 2008, making inequality levels in the country among the highest in the world.
Cosatu has threatened to pull out of an alliance with the ANC if the ruling party persists with disciplinary charges against Vavi, saying that if the decision is allowed to stand it would ‘create a terrible precedent which would spell the end of the alliance’.
The SACP said the decision is "reckless" and runs counter to the ANC’s own commitment to the alliance it leads.
It is unlikely that the ANC will risk antagonising its partners in such extremity, but backing down would brand its disciplinary processes a joke. Whichever decision it makes, the party still comes out the loser. Pull-quote
The labour body wants the government to adopt a ‘completely new growth path’ to transform the economy into one based on labour-intensive manufacturing industry, which it says meets the basic needs of South Africans. It accused Zuma of going back on promises made at the ANC’s 2008 national conference which ushered him into power.
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