With friends like Vavi and Malema, Zuma doesn't need enemies

With Morgan Stanley cutting the allocation to South African stocks while upping Brazil, we have just one measure of the impact of what the words and conduct of the ANC’s alliance partners and the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) have on the South African economy.

Indeed President Jacob Zuma has not been hammered a fraction as hard by his supposed enemies Cope or the Democratic Alliance since he assumed office.

On the one hand Zuma and the government have been fighting strike after strike from organised labour while on the other they have had to deal with the damaging utterances of Julius Malema, the ANCYL president, and the ANCYL.

While no-one appreciates the right of unions to call a strike in order to improve the position of the workers or the right of Malema to express whatever views he wishes to at any given time more, I must, however, question the timing of the call to down tools as well as the pitch for nationalising the mines.

As both Vavi and Malema are aware the president has just returned from Egypt where the delegates confirmed the effect that the global economic crisis has had on Africa. The summit for the Non-Aligned Movement went even further and focused on the meltdown in respect of the NAM.

Accordingly as part of Zuma’s inner circle going into the election, voters might have expected the alliance partners and ANCYL to do everything in their power to support the president in the early stages of his presidency. The reality is quite the contrary while they are making the president and the government’s job harder every day.

It does not assist us any further when Vavi suggests that the construction workers didn’t mean any harm or were upset about the strike. Nor does the fact that he suggests that the alliance partners are not controlling the president.

The fact is that their actions are damaging the country at a time when it can least be afforded.

The fact is that the president, the government and the ANC will answer for that damage.

In the case of Malema and the ANCYL with their political school — I trust that they will be advising their pupils that they are required to factor in courtesy and wisdom before lashing out at the general secretary of the ANC who is trying to set the record straight on damaging issues like nationalisation.

Cosatu do a lot of good work for the labour of South Africa but that must not distract from the fact that they have a responsibility to assess the political and economic climate before they unleash Armageddon on the country.