Looks like South Africa's lefty luvvies have fallen out of bed

Are Zwelinzima Vavi and Blade Nzimande breaking up? Corridors of Power is not one of those gossip columns that puts celebrity couples under public scrutiny, but recent developments leave me wondering if all is well with the famous political duo who, with the ANC Youth League, played such a big role in making Jacob Zuma president.

You should have seen them, Vavi and Nzimande, at the Union Buildings that rainy Saturday of May 9 last year when Msholozi was inaugurated as head of state. As then chief justice Pius Langa completed Zuma's swearing in, the pair, their wives and publicist Ranjeni Munusamy hugged intensely and tearfully

They beamed with the pride and joy one often sees with couples who have just brought a new life to Earth. Like excited new parents, they didn't tire in telling of the trials and tribulations they laboured through to deliver a Zuma presidency.

Over the years, the Cosatu general secretary and the SA Communist Party leader have become so politically inseparable it is often assumed that views expressed by one enjoy the unqualified support of the other. With good reason too. At the helms of their organisations, Cosatu and the SA Communist Party, they tended to speak as one, whether on Zimbabwe's political crisis, former president Thabo Mbeki's stance on HIV and Aids or economic policy.

For more than a decade, their only real difference was over Nzimande's lack of judgment on local football. He is an Orlando Pirates fanatic while Vavi supports the mighty Kaizer Chiefs.

But there are now signs that, since Nzimande quit his full-time job as SACP general secretary to be Zuma's higher education minister, the two leftists are rapidly growing apart.

Though it has been custom for years for Vavi to rail at the ANC elite's excesses and government failures, his recent attacks on the SACP suggest mounting frustration with its leader.

Last weekend, at a celebration in Queenstown, Eastern Cape, of the life of the late communist leader Chris Hani, Vavi said: "I suspect that Hani would have been worried that the party leaders have left SACP offices to be MPs, MPLs and ministers. He would mobilise workers to provide resources that will ensure the SACP has a capacity to play its vanguard role."

In mid-August, at a Ruth First Memorial lecture, Vavi said the late communist journalist would "ask where her SACP is" and "why it has not led a united working class" in the struggle against corruption and exploitative economic policies.

Vavi is clearly unhappy with his buddy's role in government.

The SACP was not invited to Cosatu's civil society conference, starting today in Boksburg. That would not have never happened a year ago.

When Vavi said he would quit his Cosatu post in 2012 the consensus was he was eyeing one of the top six leadership positions in the ANC. But he has never served on any ANC senior structures, and the ruling party is a stickler for hierarchy.

Vavi would probably have to start as an ordinary member of the ANC's national executive committee, but it is hard to see him in a low-key role. I suspect he'll go for the next best thing: challenge his old partner for the SACP general secretary job.