MK bid to attract trade union members ‘will further weaken ANC’

The move by uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), SA’s official opposition party, to attract trade unions into its fold has been described by analysts as having the potential to further weaken the ANC by eating into the support base offered by its alliance partner Cosatu.

Analysts previously warned that the influence of Cosatu and the SACP on government policy and legislation was set to take a knock after the ANC lost its outright majority during the watershed general election, plunging almost 17 percentage points from 57% in 2019 to 40% in 2024. 

The alliance has been influential in the development and passing of government policies and legislation such as the national minimum wage, the “two-pot” retirement system and the basic conditions of employment act. 

The MK party, led by former president Jacob Zuma, has been calling on teachers and other education industry workers to join the Teachers and Education Workers Union of SA (Tewusa), which is affiliated to MK. 

MK spokesperson and MP Nhlamulo Ndhlela confirmed that there “are unions that [are] wanting to be part of MK”.

Political analyst Prince Mashele said: “Zuma has one objective in mind, which is to kill the ANC and create its replacement. That’s the strategic objective. That means recreating the ANC politically through MK, and recreating it in terms of labour. That is why he is making moves to form unions. He wants members of Cosatu to move away from Cosatu and join his establishment.” 

Mashele, together with economist Mzukisi Qobo, co-authored the book The Fall of the ANC: What Next?. 

“There is a chapter in the book titled ‘Falling with partners’. We make the point that when the ANC falls, it will fall with the SACP and it will fall with Cosatu. Zuma is aware of this, that’s why he wants to demolish the ANC and bring it down with its alliance partners,” Mashele said. 

Former Gauteng premier and erstwhile Cosatu general secretary Mbhazima Shilowa, in an opinion piece on News24, said: “Having succeeded in helping reduce the ANC’s majority, MK party leader Jacob Zuma has now trained his guns on Cosatu, with the announcement of a launch of Tewusa, affiliated to his MKP.

“The ball is now in the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and Cosatu’s court. How do they respond to this challenge? It doesn’t appear like a strategy exists to counter Zuma and his MK party as he makes his foray into the trade unions,” Shilowa argued. 

He said Zuma and MK’s success in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Gauteng should not be underestimated. “These are the same areas he is targeting for the formation of the teachers’ union, that may just be the beginning of a strategy aimed at destabilising Cosatu and its affiliates.” 

The only thing that could save Sadtu and other Cosatu affiliates is that “not only are they trade unions, but they are also businesses or own businesses through their investment companies that offer members lots of benefits that they may not want to forfeit as they start afresh”, he said.

“It is high time that Cosatu and its affiliates go back to the basics of serving their members, some of whom feel neglected while the leaders focus on ANC internal politics,” Shilowa said. 

Nelson Mandela University political analyst Prof Ntsikelelo Breakfast said the working class was fragmented and Cosatu members did not necessarily vote for the ANC.

He said Zuma, a former intelligence operative, might have got wind of “discontentment within Cosatu, because the working class sees the government of national unity as a political assault. The assumption is that it will reverse political gains on matters of transformation”.

“Zuma is going to take a huge chunk of Cosatu leadership, especially in KwaZulu-Natal. The backbone of the ANC is the working class. Without the working class the ANC is finished,” Breakfast said.

“The majority of votes come from poor people and villages, that’s why the ANC is still holding on to rural areas in the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. Now if you want to tap into that space, you are finishing the ANC,” he said.

mkentanel@businesslive.co.za