Warning: bruising battle ahead

NOW that the ANC Youth League has made clear its intention to divorce itself from him, President Jacob Zuma is probably looking to his other partners to help keep him in charge beyond December next year.

NOW that the ANC Youth League has made clear its intention to divorce itself from him, President Jacob Zuma is probably looking to his other partners to help keep him in charge beyond December next year.

But, as is said to be the case with most polygamous affairs, Zuma would find that his relationship with his other partners - Cosatu and the South African Communist Party - has become complicated.

The youth league, Cosatu and the SACP were leading players in a coalition that rescued Zuma from political oblivion and helped him become the president of both the ANC and the country.

That coalition is now unravelling at breathtaking speed and unless Zuma's supporters emerge as victors at next year's Cosatu and SACP congresses, he may find himself with even fewer friends ahead of his own party's elective conference in Mangaung, Free State, at the end of 2012.

That deep divisions exist at Cosatu House - the headquarters of both the federation and its communist allies - over how to respond to the Julius Malema phenomenon as well as Zuma's desire for a second term, was underscored by statements made by two important Cosatu affiliates over the last five days.

On Saturday, at a "political lecture" in memory of a late activist, Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim openly attacked the SACP's recent labelling of Malema and his youth league as the "most dangerous threat" to the country's democracy.

"Comrade Jabu would be sad to hear liberation movement formations calling each other names and substituting each other for 'the most dangerous threat to the national democratic revolution' rather than the real danger: white monopoly capital.

"Comrade Jabu would plead with us all to listen carefully to what the youth league is saying rather than to merely dismiss it through all manner of ways," Jim said.

Barely two days later, another Cosatu affiliate, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union, was singing a different tune.

Nehawu backed the SACP's line of labelling the youth league as a "right-wing, populist demagogic tendency" which threatened to derail the attainment of a non-racial South Africa.

"After analysing the situation, the union concluded that its immediate tactical role is to work with progressives to dislodge this tendency before anarchy is unleashed on the working class and the nation," Nehawu said in a statement.

A major gathering of Cosatu and its affiliates takes place in Gauteng next week where these differences in approach will dominate the agenda.

On Numsa's side is the South African Democratic Teachers' Union and several other affiliates who appear to prefer forging closer ties with the youth league on policy issues such as the expropriation of land without compensation as well as nationalisation.

This grouping is suspicious of the Zuma-led ANC leadership and wants to see Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande - who is a close ally of the president - ousted as SACP general secretary.

In Nehawu's corner are the National Union of Mineworkers and other unions who believe that the ANC's leaders - especially Zuma and party secretary-general Gwede Mantashe - have to be protected from Malema and his comrades.

This grouping may not be happy with the manner in which Zuma has led both the ANC and the government over the years, but they would rather have him stay on than see "the tenderpreneurs" take over Luthuli House.

It is unlikely that next week's meeting will resolve the differences between the two sides, but it may give us an indication of whether Zuma supporters stand any chance of winning the Cosatu congress next year.