Business Day
*Cosatu takes the heat for mixing with ‘right wing’* *Sibongakonke Shoba, Business Day, Johannesburg, 18 November 2010*THE South African Communist Party (SACP) yesterday lambasted the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) for its association with "right-wing" formations.
Cosatu hosted a civil society gathering last month, at which the African National Congress (ANC) government was criticised, mainly for its lack of service delivery and rampant corruption.
The SACP’s criticism joins that of the ANC, as relations in the tripartite alliance continue to crumble. The ANC and SACP were also offended that they were not invited.
In the SACP’s online newsletter yesterday, deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin warned Cosatu to be wary of associating with formations whose motives were questionable.
"As alliance partners, we need to be very careful that we are not manipulated into someone else’s strategic agenda, particularly when that agenda is itself increasingly hegemonised by a much more right- wing, antimajoritarian liberalism," Mr Cronin said.
The Boksburg conference last month was also hosted by the Treatment Action Campaign, Section 27 and the Social Justice Coalition.
While many in Cosatu defended the conference, not all agree on its militancy towards the government and the ANC. Some Cosatu central executive committee members who hold dual membership feel Cosatu had hijacked the SACP’s anticorruption campaign, and took the issue out of the ANC-led alliance when it got civil society structures involved.
However, Cosatu yesterday stood firm and defended its participation."We stand by everything we’ve said. We will continue to work with civil society organisations. It has always been a policy of alliance partners to work with civil society and that is what Cosatu is doing."
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