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Kgalema Motlanthe calling it as it is

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Kgalema Motlanthe

PHOTO: DENVOR DE WEE
Kgalema Motlanthe PHOTO: DENVOR DE WEE

Kgalema Motlanthe has stoked ire after speaking out about the alliance, writes Ebrahim Harvey 

Yellow-shirted ANC tripartite leaders (from left) 
Sdumo Dlamini, Blade Nzimande, Zweli Mkhize, Gwede Mantashe and President Jacob Zuma celebrate the 102nd birthday of the ANC last year. The writer says Kgalema Motlanthe has been criticised for saying that Cosatu and the SACP have abandoned their independence in the tripartite alliance at the altar of political expediency
PHOTO: Felix Dlangamandla


This week’s response by Sizwe Pamla, spokesperson of labour federation Cosatu, to the critical views of former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe in a Business Day interview last week was seriously misplaced and misleading.

So, too, was the reaction of Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini, who said Motlanthe was out of touch with Cosatu developments.

Pamla accused Motlanthe of political posturing.

Deputy general secretary of the SA Communist Party (SACP) Solly Mapaila said Motlanthe was going off on a tangent.

Interestingly, the ANC did not criticise or condemn Motlanthe. Instead, it welcomed his forthrightness and willingness to provide leadership and regarded him as a voice of reason.

No doubt, the close relationship between Motlanthe and ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe – they worked together in the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1990s – influenced the ANC’s tactful restraint. Predictably, Mantashe refused to be drawn on his reaction to Motlanthe’s views.

In the interview, Motlanthe expressed views strongly critical of the alliance between the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP, saying it was dead, that it existed only in name and was, in fact, one organisation – meaning it was totally dominated by the ANC.

But the reason the ANC did not hit out at him was the fact that, although he criticised the party, he aimed his barbs largely at the leadership of Cosatu and the SACP.

He in effect criticised both for abandoning their independence at the altar of political expediency and, with it, the interests of their respective constituencies.

Developments in the relationship between the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP since Dlamini was elected to the ANC national executive committee and the top leadership of the SACP – Blade Nzimande and Jeremy Cronin – was appointed to Cabinet, confirm that Motlanthe is right.

Many commentators and analysts, including me, have repeatedly pointed out Cosatu’s loss of independence, and especially that of the SACP, for several years.

The big difference is that it is the first time someone in the ANC of the stature of Motlanthe has pointed this out in the public domain.

But Cosatu’s quick reaction to Motlanthe’s criticism was based less on its alleged loss of independence in the ANC and more on the fact that he lambasted the expulsion of metalworkers’ union Numsa from Cosatu, saying it was unheard of.

I reckon that the boldness of his views in the interview and its timing are an accurate reflection of the unprecedented crisis in the ANC and its alliance with the SACP and Cosatu, as well as in society and the economy.

What Motlanthe is basically saying is we have a crisis of leadership in this country. Though he does not mention President Jacob Zuma, I have no doubt his criticism includes him – after all, Zuma is the president of the ANC and the country.

But we need to place Motlanthe’s views in perspective.

Not only is he entitled to hold these views, but there can be no doubt he is probably the most independent- minded leader of the ANC. He speaks up and takes a stand when other ANC leaders are quiet, lack the courage or are nonchalant. The truth is that he has stirred a hornet’s nest many times in the ANC.

When he was secretary-general, he publicly called on ANC members not to vote for an ANC councillor in Tembisa, describing him as a drunk.

In 2007, he told journalist Carol Paton that the rot of corruption spread across the state and society and the ANC faced serious problems when its members at various levels of the state were able to influence tenders and gain access to resources.

If the ANC had taken his many warnings seriously, it might have prevented the looting of the public purse by its members over the years.

Much to the chagrin of other ANC leaders, including Mantashe, he was strongly opposed to the expulsion of Julius Malema and other leaders of the ANC Youth League, believing that whatever problems the youths presented, they had to be nurtured, guided and rehabilitated, rather than expelled from the ANC.

In light of the considerable force the Economic Freedom Fighters has become in this country under Malema’s leadership, the ANC probably regrets it did not listen to Motlanthe, who sought a “political solution” to the problems Malema and the youth league had with the ANC. Instead, they were brutally bundled out of the ANC. The rest, as they say, is history.

When he was deputy president of the country, and in the run-up to the elective conference in Mangaung, he criticised the ANC’s “second-transition” views: “Second transition! Second transition! But what constituted the first transition, and have all the tasks of that phase been accomplished or not?” he asked.

Many in government were very unhappy with that criticism.

Last year, he earned the wrath of the governing party when he accused it of conducting itself in Parliament with an arrogance that suggested that the opposition did not have a right to exist.

He similarly earned the wrath of the ANC when he criticised its opposition last year to the renaming of a boulevard in Cape Town in honour of former president FW de Klerk, which he had no problem with.

Harvey is Motlanthe’s biographer

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