JUSTICE MALALA: Cosatu — the election’s forgotten factory
Coalition talks will include trade unions and the SACP — a road which may lead to treachery and deceit
We’ve spoken ad nauseam about the many coalition scenarios that could play out in South Africa after May 29, but there is a crucial participant in these pacts we have been ignoring. That’s the trade unions massed under Cosatu. Their role in the next few months will be important to the ANC’s fortunes, and their stances afterwards could make or break some coalitions.
One union’s role in the run-up to the May 29 election is already being felt in eThekwini, KwaZulu-Natal, where the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has embarked on an unprotected strike and engaged in acts of violence and intimidation that have left the city dirty, chaotic, stinking, waterless, powerless and looking like some post-apocalyptic warzone. I was there last Thursday. It’s an embarrassment. The ANC has lost control of eThekwini. The place is a disgraceful, dysfunctional dump. The private sector has fled the city centre. Umhlanga is now where even the ANC’s own leaders meet and socialise. D...
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