Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi says his decision not to accept nomination for the ANC’s NEC is personal.
|||Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi says his decision not to accept nomination for the ANC’s national executive committee is personal and not the position of the federation.
Swelling the ranks of the ANC and SACP was already Cosatu policy, he said on Thursday.
This was because the ANC was “contested terrain”.
“If workers are not there to contest the direction, then others may use their power and influence to direct the train away from the Freedom Charter,” he told the National Union of Metalworkers’ (Numsa) congress in Durban.
President Jacob Zuma urged Numsa delegates this week to become involved in the ANC at every level.
Vavi said people had mistakenly confused his personal stance against nomination for an ANC leadership position as being the position of Cosatu.
However, he was now more convinced than ever that someone who was “the face… and voice of workers on the basis of their mandate must be spared from this push to swell the ranks”.
This was because of the dangers of becoming compromised.
Patronage was “no small matter, it is most powerful in every capitalist society”, Vavi said.
“Every person walks round with a demon of power inside him, wants to be something in life… There is nothing more compromising – although not in every case – than to get a general secretary saying something on this platform and then to say something else on another platform, because people are not fools.”
Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, who is also general secretary of the SACP, has so far resisted pressure – particularly from Numsa – to wear only one hat.
Vavi said that at its elective congress in September, Cosatu would discuss going to the ANC’s Mangaung conference with a single demand: full implementation of the Freedom Charter.
This would include the clauses that deal with the wealth of the country being shared by all.
Political Bureau