The president of the trade union federation Cosatu, Zingiswa Losi, has come out in defence of DA federal council chair Helen Zille, saying that she has a right to hold DA deployees in government to account.
Losi added her voice to the debate after statements by ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe accusing Zille of wanting the DA’s ministers to regard her as the boss. The Sunday Times reported that Mantashe warned that Zille's actions could precipitate the collapse of the power-sharing deal.
In an interview with TimesLIVE Premium on Monday, Losi said Zille had the right to hold the deployees of the DA accountable to her political party, much like the ANC's national executive committee (NEC) should with its deployees in government.
“I don't know what Helen Zille would have said or done, but the DA has a responsibility to its deployees to hold them accountable," she said. The same applies to the IFP, the EFF and all the other parties.
"Voters must hold parties accountable because we have given them a mandate of five years. Because we have endorsed this government of national unity, and therefore we must hold you accountable. We have that responsibility to do so,” she said.
Losi said it was concerning that “a national chairperson of the ANC” would hold this view.
She said her understanding, and that of Cosatu, was that cabinet was accountable to the president.
“It makes you worried if a national chair of the ANC can say that. But what is it that the ANC was getting into? What did they understand to be a government of national unity now that you would have a national chair who would publicly say that?
“He should not be having those fears. You should be confident that you have a government of national unity, and you have a president that has set up a cabinet, a government, and he is going to hold every cabinet member accountable. Unless there's an understanding that we don't have that, there are limitations to the powers of the president that aren't disclosed.
“Hence then you would have a concern ... that it seems as if the DA cabinet members are accountable to Helen. So I don't think Mqwathi [Mantashe] should be worried if the powers of the president are intact and every cabinet member accounts to the president,” she said.
At what point did you say this is a leftist party you can rely upon? By the way, even the ANC, we say it is biased towards the left — but it's not left
— Zingiswa Losi, Cosatu president
ANC leaders and members of its tripartite alliance Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP) have in the recent past raised concerns about the alliance with the DA. There has been a pushback from ANC leaders on the decision to coalesce with the DA in the GNU.
One of the most public statements of outrage came from tripartite alliance leader Solly Mapaila, the general secretary of the SACP, who lambasted the ANC as having “sold out” for having formed a government with the DA and the Freedom Front Plus.
Mapaila raised the ire of ANC leaders last week when he said the ANC should have taken its advice to form a minority government with leftist parties including the EFF.
Speaking at the Nehawu national political school last week, Mapaila tore into the ANC, saying it had gone into bed with neoliberal and colonial parties in the form of the DA and FF Plus.
Mapaila said he begged the ANC to focus on the possible revolutionary path, arguing that it would be better to be irritated by the EFF in cabinet than to be irritated by the neoliberal forces who want to be dominant and take control of the revolution. He said the alliance had not been adequately consulted on the process of forming an ANC-led GNU.
But Losi hit back at these statements saying that there was nothing left about the EFF. She said the EFF has demonstrated that it was not a leftist party, adding that alliance leaders were “obsessed” with characterising the EFF as a leftist party it could work with.
“What is left about the EFF? They voted against the national health insurance, they voted against progressive bills in parliament that Cosatu expected the left to vote in favour of. So at what point did you say this is a leftist party you can then rely upon? By the way, even the ANC, we say it is biased towards the left — but it's not left.”
She said there was an obsession in believing that the EFF was the only option for an ANC coalition. However, she said the EFF continued to vote with the DA in municipalities but placed conditions on working with the ANC.
She said statements by the EFF's deputy president Floyd Shivambu showed it was not willing to work with the ANC.
She was referring to a 2023 interview with JJ Tabane in which Shivambu said all opposition parties must come together irrespective of their ideology to unseat the ANC from government.
“So for me, and I speak for Cosatu, I think we have the responsibility to defend the gains that we made since 1994 irrespective of who is in government.”
She said trade unions would continue to exist irrespective of who was in government.
“That's why we call for a rebuilding of ourselves. Because it doesn't matter who is in government. We have Samwu that is in municipalities that are not run by the ANC. Samwu has to fight and continue to exist because it understands whose interest it serves. But we are going to hold politicians accountable, that's our responsibility,” she said.
She said the ANC had a right to decide whether it would take its alliance partners' recommendations on its options to form a government.
“We went to an alliance political council and we tabled our options. Remember, the ANC leadership must go to the NEC and the NEC must debate and look into the options and then make a decision. They make a decision of the GNU. It's a decision of the NEC.
“Now, whether our views were listened to but not considered, remember, there's a process in any organisation. Because when engaging Cosatu it does not mean what you are saying is there is a preference for Cosatu. But it also does not mean that we did not engage but we found the best process for Cosatu.”
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