Trade unonists’ United Front gathers momentum as ANC considers future at under 50% of vote
By Mike Cohen
The party that led the fight against apartheid has lost touch with its base of workers and the poor, Twani, 40, said by phone from the southern city of East London on Nov. 18. An educational officer for the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, or Numsa, in the Eastern Cape province, Twani is trying to rally unionists and civil-rights activists to join the United Front — a precursor to a new workers' party.
"People are coming in droves to our meetings, saying the ruling party has long lost what it originally stood for," Twani said. "It is no longer serving the interests of the workers and the working class. We can't simply be loyal to logos and colors of party politics."
The defection of the 350,000-member Numsa from the ANC's ruling coalition and its plans to set up the United Front mark potentially the biggest threat yet to the party's domination. A new political party backed by the union could cut support for the ANC to below 50 percent by 2019, said Mzukisi Qobo, a politics lecturer at the University of Pretoria.
"They have a well-oiled financial and organizational machinery," Qobo said by phone. "They are used to organizing on the shop floors, they are used to campaigning electorally. They could eat very deeply into the ANC's constituency."
Union Power
South African unions have been key to keeping the ANC in power. The Congress of South African Trade Unions, the nation's largest labor federation grouping 21 unions including Numsa with 2.2 million members, helped the party win more than 60 percent support in every election since it took power under Nelson Mandela in 1994.
Cosatu also helped Jacob Zuma wrest control of the 102- year-old ANC from Thabo Mbeki in 2007, paving the way for him to become president two years later.
His relationship with some unions soured after the ANC adopted the National Development Plan, an economic blueprint that seeks to encourage private investment and urges changes to labor laws that will make it easier to hire and fire workers.
Allegations by the nation's graft ombudsman that Zuma unduly benefited from a state-funded 215-million rand ($19.5 million) upgrade of his private home, including a swimming pool and cattle enclosure, has added to the disgruntlement.
Coalition Cracks
The ruling coalition began to crack when Numsa, Cosatu's biggest affiliate, withdrew its support from the party last year.
Cosatu expelled Numsa on Nov. 8, a decision opposed by seven other unions with 600,000 members.
Two previous attempts by defectors from the ANC to form rival parties have failed.
The United Democratic Movement established in 1997 by former Deputy Tourism Minister Bantu Holomisa won 1 percent of the vote in elections in May. Support for the Congress of the People, founded by ex-ANC chairman Mosiuoa Lekota in 2008, fell to 0.7 percent, from 7.4 percent five years earlier.
A more recent challenge from the Economic Freedom Fighters, led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, has fared better. It won 6.4 percent of the vote just seven months after its formation. The party advocates the state seizure of mines, banks and land, and has drawn support among unemployed black youths.
First Test
"The onion is being peeled off layer by layer," Pierre du Toit, a politics professor at the University of Stellenbosch near Cape Town, said by phone. "The first significant layer was the EFF. Numsa is probably an even bigger threat to the ANC, especially if it retains the backing of seven or eight other unions."
The first test of support for a new party could come in municipal elections in 2016.
The ANC currently controls seven of the eight main metropolitan areas. A loss of union support could cost it the southeastern towns of Port Elizabeth and East London, where the automotive industry is based and Numsa has strong backing. Results from the national elections in May show the ANC's majority is also at risk in Johannesburg, the largest city, and Pretoria, the capital.
"The ANC without a Numsa split is increasingly vulnerable in these metros," Daniel Silke, director of Cape Town-based Political Futures Consultancy, said by phone on Nov. 18. "With a Numsa split, it simply becomes more so."
ANC Support
The ANC concedes that a breakup of Cosatu will erode its support and has called for Numsa's expulsion to be reversed, an appeal rejected by the federation's leadership.
"The split in the Cosatu can only benefit enemies of the alliance for the right and from the left," ANCSecretary- General Gwede Mantashe told reporters in Johannesburg on Nov. 10. "We don't believe the split in the federation is due to irreconcilable differences."
Numsa's general secretary, Irvin Jim, says the union won't return to the ANC fold unless the party abandons policies that have led to worker exploitation, factory closures and a 25 percent employment rate, which has remained almost static for the past 14 years.
"The working class needs its own political organization," he said in an address to workers at a Ford Motor Co. plant in Pretoria on Nov. 17. Numsa "will remain a union, it will not turn itself into a political party. We will be the catalyst for building the United Front and the movement for socialism."
The ANC has itself to blame for alienating workers, according to Twani, the Numsa education officer.
"It is no longer the ANC we used to know," he said. "Our observation on the ground from the various organizations, political activists, confirm the time for an alternative has arrived."