YCL suggestion to ANC would be tantamount to a bloodless coup

If the ANC were ever to contemplate handing over two-thirds of its seats in parliament or in the provincial legislatures to the SACP and Cosatu it would be tantamount to a bloodless coup.

“THE Young Communist League called on the African National Congress (ANC) yesterday to give up two-thirds of its seats in parliament and the provincial legislatures to its partners in the tripartite alliance.

The league said the ANC should adopt a quota system to give a third of the elected positions to the South African Communist Party (SACP) and a third to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

In addition, the two alliance partners should elect their representatives directly rather than the ANC choosing them, the league said after its national committee meeting yesterday. League national secretary Buti Manamela said it was time for the ANC, SACP and Cosatu to be equal partners. “The issue of junior partners in the alliance cannot continue,” he said.” (Business Day)

As things stand the perception is that it is the Alliance partners and the ANCYL who are the parties driving the bus known as the ANC, issuing threats and carrying on regardless of the interests of the government and the party with the sole aim of ensuring Jacob Zuma is the next president of South Africa.

Are Cosatu and the SACP of the view that should JZ be made president, they would effectively be in control of the government or at the very least, as suggested by the YCL, their members be given two-thirds of the seats.

I need hardly remind you that neither the policies nor the ideologies of the Alliance partners and the ANC are such that they can be easily merged. As things stand the government and labour have been at odds over what should constitute fiscal and labour policies.

What is of interest is the threat that junior partnerships can no longer continue. Are the two Alliance partners suggesting that if the ANC won’t hand over the government to labour they would choose to go their own way?

Hardly likely when at present they are exercising control over policy far in excess of their fighting weight.

With the attacks on Kgalema Motlanthe and the YCL and Cosatu now putting pressure on JZ to give them further recognition, are we now witnessing an attempt to shift the party sharply to the left?

We could be in for an interesting week.