Sadtu firmly behind Zuma

The South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) has denied that its shop stewards were against President Jacob Zuma's re-election at the ANC national elective conference in Mangaung.

"Sadtu's decision to support the leadership of the ANC led by Zuma in Mangaung was motivated overwhelmingly by our members including our site stewards," Sadtu said in a statement.

It referred to a survey, conducted by the Forum for Public Dialogue (FPD) among 2 000 shop stewards belonging to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in all nine provinces. It was to have been released in full last week, but would only be made public next year.

According to the invitation to the release of the report, the survey found shop stewards wanted nationalisation, had no confidence in the SA Communist Party, and wanted Cosatu to form a labour party.

"On leadership in Mangaung, the study found that the majority of Cosatu shop stewards do not support Jacob Zuma's re-election for the position of president of the ANC," the FPD said in its invitation.

Sadtu, Cosatu's fourth-largest member union, denied this.

"Essentially it indicates that the results of this survey are most likely very far from the truth and were just meant to cast doubt on his leadership capabilities," said Sadtu.

"They also serve to perpetuate the trend by some sectors which include the neo-liberal media, so-called analysts, some NGOs etc to fabricate a crisis."

Meanwhile, FDB senior researcher Brutus Madala said the preliminary results had been based on interviews with shop stewards from a list provided by Cosatu. Sadtu shop stewards were among those on the list, he said.

"They have not had access to the full report," he added.