Africa-Press – South-Africa. The ANC’s alliance partner, Cosatu, has assured the party, ahead of Workers’ Day celebrations next week, there will be no repeat of last year’s chaotic scenes when President Cyril Ramaphosa was prevented from addressing workers in Rustenburg, the North West.
Briefing the media on some of the discussions the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) had over the weekend, the party’s head of policy and research, Fébé Potgieter, said engagements within the course of the past three weeks with Cosatu have assured the governing party there would be no repeat of the booing that forced Ramaphosa to leave without delivering his address.
Potgieter added: “Cosatu has briefed us that it is calling a special central executive committee meeting to address this matter because we certainly don’t expect disruptions from certain sections of the affiliates to disrupt the May Day rally.
“We are confident May Day this year will focus on the commemorations and addressing general issues that workers face.”
She said while the main rally would be held in Bethlehem, the Free State, this year, it would be a joint programme between the North West and Free State as they wished to use the opportunity to also commemorate the Saulspoort bus tragedy.
On Workers’ Day in 2003, a bus carrying workers – Cosatu members – from the Sol Plaatje Municipality in Kimberley plunged into the Saulspoort Dam, near Bethlehem, on the way to a rally in QwaQwa.
Considering the assurance from its alliance partner, Potgieter said the ANC would “certainly deploy people” to all 11 rallies across the country.
“We [the ANC and Cosatu] sit in a joint alliance campaigns committee where over the last three weeks regional organisers, our provincial structures of the ANC and of Cosatu have sat together and jointly strategised for the May Day rallies.
“Our structures on the ground are part of all the mobilisations leading up to the rallies,” she added.
The ANC was in a hurry to prevent the disruptions that happened last year as it convened over the weekend, citing a pressing need to reconfigure the alliance partnership.
Party insiders described the rigorous deliberations as a bid to appease its alliance partners, Cosatu and the SACP, ahead of the May Day celebrations and the national elections next year.
Cracks in the alliance have appeared and following his booing at the May Day rally last year, Ramaphosa did not attend Cosatu’s national elective conference in September.
A delegation sent by the ANC to the event, led by national party chairperson Gwede Mantashe, was also heckled off the stage and not allowed to address the delegates.
ANC NEC member Zuko Godlimpi, who along with Potgieter led the team tasked with finding ways to strengthen the alliance, said there were several concerns the ANC had identified about the current arrangement between the three organisations.
Godlimpi added Cosatu and the SACP had raised concerns over how the ANC drafted its manifesto ahead of elections, with the two demanding to have a say.
“We always view the manifesto as an alliance stance, not an ANC document.”
Without going into detail, he added there were areas of serious policy disagreements, but the three organisations were in the process of trying to iron out those differences.
ANC NEC members, who spoke to News24, expressed concern over some of the demands by the alliance partners, saying some were motivated by self-interest more than the strengthening of the alliance.
News24 understands some of the demands included calls for all changes to the Cabinet to be made in consultation with them.
The ANC is said to be reluctant to make too many concessions as it believes the two alliance partners are not bringing much to the table.
Godlimpi said the ANC had raised concerns over the sharp decline in the unionisation of workers, and this would, in particular, be discussed with Cosatu.
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