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Former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi should get a hobby and move on.
This was Cosatu’s reaction to Vavi saying the trade union federation was little more than a labour desk of the ruling party. Vavi made his comments while addressing the Botswana Public Employees Union in Botswana on Tuesday.
“We had two congresses where we discussed Zwelinzima Vavi. We no longer discuss him,” said Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla.
“Our position on him is that we hope he will get over this hangover he currently has and he will find himself either a hobby or something to do with his energy and time.”
He said the federation had moved on and so had the workers.
“Certainly it looks as if he finds it difficult to define himself outside Cosatu. So we wish him well and that he will at some point in his life adjust to the reality that he is no longer secretary-general of Cosatu.”
What he says or don’t say about Cosatu makes very little difference, said Pamla.
Vavi told the Botswana Public Employees Union that that democracy was chronically undermined by neo-liberalism.
“Ruling parties are elected on a manifesto, and are then persuaded by big business to do otherwise when elected into government.”
He blasted Cosatu for what he called its “implosion”.
“The decision to derail the federation, and turn it into a conveyor belt for government, was not an accident, but a deliberate act, a conscious strategy to ensure that Cosatu did not challenge the government’s slide into full-scale neo-liberalism,” Vavi said.
In November, Cosatu’s national congress confirmed Vavi’s expulsion, with an overwhelming 1 183 voting in favour of it and 87 voted against.
Vavi also confirmed that he would not be appealing his expulsion.
– additional reporting by News24
