Zuma, Mantashe fire warning shots at federation

The ANC top brass has turned to party branches for support ahead of a major showdown with its alliance partner Cosatu.

President Jacob Zuma and ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe have used provincial general council meetings to launch a counter-offensive against Cosatu officials who have accused them of failing to provide leadership to both the country and the ruling alliance.

Relations between Luthuli House and Cosatu reached a new low last month during the violent public sector strike in which trade union leaders and members publicly insultedZuma and other government leaders.

The two organisations are scheduled to meet in Johannesburg tomorrow to discuss the strained relations and the forthcoming ANC national general council.

Speaking at an ANC provincial general council in Limpopo yesterday, Zuma pleaded with Cosatu, ANC and SA Communist Party leaders to stop attacking each other in public, saying it was causing divisions in the alliance.

He urged them to "never lose sight of our unity, regardless of challenges".

"If I am a loyal member of the alliance, I cannot talk bad about the other alliance partners in public and the media. If I have issues to raise, I must do so by following the proper procedures of our movement. That is the loyalty demanded of us, irrespective of positions we hold," said Zuma.

At a similar gathering in Gauteng yesterday, Mantashe slammed Cosatu for recently threatening not to canvass votes for ANC candidates of whom it did not approve during next year's local government elections.

"If you give us a choice that you are going to select the people that you like, it means don't be part of the selection process. You can't be part of a process of going to branches to choose candidates ... because we can say, 'Test the popularity of your short-list in the community.'

"If Cosatu is going to be part of that process, it can't have a choice of saying, 'We will support you and opt out when we like,' because it says, 'If what we like is not the preferred candidate, we don't support, but if it is our preferred candidate, we support.' If that is the case, we can as well let you write us a list of candidates. It can't work that way," said Mantashe.

The ANC secretary-general, a former trade unionist, said the recent strike had exposed growing mistrust between Cosatu and government leaders.

"We need to have a discussion that when you engage the government and sometimes make a settlement demand, and we all march and say, 'Please accept this settlement demand,' they go out there and state this as a government offer.

"To me, that talks to the integrity of the negotiators to say, 'Can we trust each other?' Integrity in bargaining is like glue. If you play with it in alliance politics, we are destroying the most important glue in collective bargaining."

Zuma's and Mantashe's attacks on Cosatu came days after the federation released two discussion documents that are scathing of the post-Polokwane leadership's handling of alliance affairs and the economy.

In a political report compiled by Cosatu's central executive committee, Zuma and Mantashe are portrayed as politicians paralysed by fear and unable to take key decisions.

"The ANC leadership is afraid of losing positions in 2012 and therefore don't want to alienate any powerful group. So, as a result of internal ANC dynamics, the alliance is now in limbo," Cosatu says in the document.

The "fear", says Cosatu, stems from the ANC Youth League campaign to oust Mantashe.

"It was hardly a year into their term when the predatory elite started making statements that some, in particular (Mantashe), and increasingly the president, will be replaced."