Friend or foe of the Alliance?
at this stage... The working class orien- located in a mass movement. We're not organised workers played their role... systematic persuasion". *
* South Africa
The South African Communist Party (SACP) has used its considerable influence at union leadership level tends to curb working class radicalism. But no amount of arguing that the Alliance provides the best vehicle to influence the ANC and government in a Despite being one of the largest and transformation forums - all of which programmatic direction will make the most active component of the mass requires SANCO involvement. tensions subside completely.
In fact, as the ANC government increasingly speaks for capital, get worse. This will producing new conflicts within the base structures of all the Alliance partners: the ANC, COSATU and even the SACP (where the left opposition is slowly finding its voice.
The business press, fast to read the ambiguities, has advised the government that COSATU's alternative economic proposals should not be seen "as a wedge" between the ANC and implementation of the GEAR program, but as "a warning to be taken Unions Debate the Alliance
At the 1996 Conference of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUMSA), three regions recommended an immediate break with the Alliance and building a working class party in the medium term. In 1993 the union had said that the Alliance should end as soon as the ANC took power.
But now a majority of delegates accepted democratic movement, the African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) never joined the Alliance. The organisation had suffered extreme marginalisation by the ANC, which even ordered SANCO to get permission from the ANC before launching campaigns or establishing new branches. SANCO was also advised to steer away from forging a mass identity "because SANCO and ANC share the same constituency." Some in government wanted SANCO disbanded because it was "seen as fashioning itself into an opposition to challenge ANC in the next elections"
In recent months, SANCO has been demanding the recognition it deserves Under rank and file pressure, the organisation has been re-examining its electoral support for the ANC. Angry over the government's lack of delivery, many local SANCO organs wanted to cut ties with the ANC. This would have serious implications for government
Last year, SANCO recalled Moses Mayekiso (previously NUMSA President) from parliament to head its new investment arm. SANCO also recalled Mr. M Hlongwane, mayor of Vaal, to become full-time national president of SANCO. The organisation decided that there was a conflict of interest between holding key government positions, and leading an organisation like SANCO that is supposed to put pressure on local government to ensure accountability.
With relations almost at breaking point, COSATU suggested that SANCO be invited to join the Alliance. ANC leaders, including President Mandela, made a point of participating in SANCO's national conference. Mandela expressed ANC recognition of SANCO as a leading component of the mass democratic movement, and promising to consult and listen to the organisation in the future.
In February 1997 the ANC finally campaigns, and would impact nega- managed to persuade SANCO to allow the argument that continued participation in tively on the role of community develop- SANCO officers to continue holding the Alliance was essential in order to ensure ment forums, community policing, and office as MPs and senior civil servants, political support for NUMSA's economic community health and education and promote the ANC in elections. * platform. Finally, a compromise resolution entrusted union leaders with deciding, on an ongoing basis, whether the Alliance was still worthwhile for NUMSA members.
Staying in the Alliance was seen to offer
The Communist Party and the Alliance labour its best chance of influencing government, particularly over economic policy.
NUMSA President Godongwana described
GEAR as a "right-wing document which has
Members of the South African Com- Organised workers need to consciously all the elements of neo-liberalism"
government had turned its back on the RDP munist Party (SACP) play a leading role in trade unions, civic associations, inthe
ANC and, since 1994, in all levels of strengthen their role in all political formations of the Alliance, the ANC and
SACP, to realise the working class in a strategic retreat.
Conference rejected GEAR but agreed to negotiate with the government on key aspects, including industrial restructuring and was. It is certainly no more powerful SACP theory, the need for a "National building a social welfare base.
NUMSA resolved that the state should play an active and interventionist role in the economy. "We cannot rely on private sector investment, international market forces and the reduction in government spending to create the kind of growth that will create
On political policy, the union resolved that "We are faced with a nominally democratic state where economic power is still largely in the hands of capital....
"This is a compromise born out of the complex forces involved in the transition to democracy and not necessarily the ideal outcome for the working class or the disadvantaged".
Delegates voted in favour of talks between COSATU, and the smaller Fedsal and NACTU union federations, with a view to establishing a loose confederation of trade unions. * 26 International Viewpoint government. But, influential as it is, the SACP is no longer the monolith it once than the nationalist wing of the ANC Leading comrades are increasingly worried about this development.
Top SACP member (and COSATU General Secretary) Sam Shilowa told delegates to the September 1996 Congress of the National Union of Miners (NUMSA) that "COSATU and the SACP have to identify their role in the Alliance with the ANC so that we don't submerge ourselves but at the same time don't marginalise ourselves"
SACP deputy Chairperson Blade Nzimande, MP, told NUMSA delegates that "the organisational challenge was how to translate into reality the acceptance that the working class led the Alliance... The ANC remained the vehicle for attaining working class goals tation of the ANC could be realised if potential of the ANC."
Nzimande re-stated the centrepiece of Democratic Revolution" before communists should push South Africa onto the socialist road. "The main strategic objective of the revolution at this phase should be the struggle for the transformation of South Africa's capitalist state into a national democratic state"
"I don't think we should be trying to come up witn an economic strategy document, for instance, " said SACP deputy General Secretary Jeremy Cronin, when asked to clarify the party's relationship with the Alliance. "And anyway, we don't have the capacity. That's why we are in the Alliance!" According to Cronin, "ultimately the Party is only as good as the ANC is - if it is weak, we are weak" . A view shared by politburo member Langa Zita: "We're a party a substitute for it. Our role is constant,
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
SANCO SACP