Randburg, 26 September 2008
General Secretary, comrade Blade Nzimande; Members of the Central Committee; Delegates; Leadership of the alliance present here; Leaders of the fraternal organisations; Distinguished guests; Comrades and friends:
On behalf of COSATU's two million members I bring greetings to the SACP on the occasion of this most important policy conference. You could not be meeting at a more crucial moment.
Yesterday we saw history being made when our comrade Kgalema Motlanthe was elected as President. COSATU is confident that Mkhuluwa will heal the divisions, which have plagued our movement in the recent past, and open a new chapter in which we build and strengthen unity within the ANC and its allies as we prepare for the 2009 elections.
We look forward to seeing his government starting to implement the ANC's watershed ANC 52nd Polokwane Conference resolutions and tackle the immense challenge to create jobs and eradicate poverty.
You are also meeting soon after Judge Chris Nicholson's ruling in the Pietermaritzburg High Court that largely confirmed everything that COSATU, the SACP and many others have been saying for years - that Comrade Jacob Zuma has been the victim of a political conspiracy, in which judicial structures and individuals were used improperly for factional political ends.
The other reason why this is such an appropriate time to be discussing policy is that in a week's time, our alliance will be holding its first ever Economic Summit which aims to finalise the road map for the next decade, and set South Africa on the next phase of its national democratic revolution.
The situation is however still very fragile and the outcome uncertain.
Post-Polokwane the Alliance faces several challenges. Hence the need for clarity of thought - which I know this conference will provide - and decisive action.
The Summit will provide an opportunity for the alliance partners to:
a) Forge a clear and unambiguous economic programme based on the Polokwane resolutions and our shared commitment to a pro-worker and pro-poor policy, which must then find expression in the Manifesto.
b) Unite the movement and take steps to lay the ghost of divisions to rest.
c) Ensure that cadres in government reinforce and support the ANC leadership and all policies emanating from Polokwane and broader Alliance policies.
d) Rally the majority of our society behind this programme for change.
e) Prepare the ANC to govern effectively and hit the ground running after the elections results have been announced.
Polokwane has heightened contestation around the content and direction of policy. Its outcome is a subject of contestation, intense debate and speculation with areas of contradiction, ambivalence, silences, and disagreements. Some want to interpret its resolutions as a mandate for major progressive policy shifts; others for no fundamental change at all.
Capital especially is definitely unnerved and is piling pressure on government - and the new ANC leadership - to 'stay the course', i.e. maintain existing 'market-friendly' policies.
On the other hand the Polokwane resolutions have raised the expectations of millions of our people that their plight will change for the better. And they are right - when they are compared to existing government policy and practice, the resolutions certainly do represent a major shift. They call for instance for economic policies centred on creation of decent work and poverty alleviation.
They also call for an agrarian development programme, to bring decent livelihoods to those who were historically most oppressed - farm workers and people in the former homelands. The priority is to ensure that land reform becomes a programme that uplifts our people's lives on a mass scale, in contrast to programmes that only enrich a few black commercial farmers.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the resolutions call for thoroughgoing democratisation of our society, from the state, to the economy and to communities. We must ensure that the state bureaucracy becomes more responsive to the masses, listens to the concerns of our members and the working class as a whole, and that our organisations are treated as the legitimate voice of our communities, not as one more in a queue of special interests.
Comrades, The transition from the old to the new ANC leadership has not been plain sailing. The Polokwane conference represented a revolt by ANC members against the top-down, near-autocratic style of leadership that opened a huge social and political gap between the leadership and membership.
The membership was by design reduced into spectators in the theatre of transformation. The ANC's capacity was, also by design, emasculated and its head office was left with no capacity to develop policy, monitor and enforce compliance with the decisions of the constitutional structures.
Power shifted from the ANC to government and society came to accept that the government is much more powerful and more important than the ANC and the Alliance. The NEC, dominated by cabinet, did not sufficiently prioritise mass work and political education. This is at the heart of many problems the movement faces today. This environment was the breeding ground of new cultures and traditions that were at the heart of divisions, including:
a) Adopting liberal stances on economic transformation, risking transforming the NDR into a process of cosmetic change, i.e. changing the colour of the ruling class while the material base remains virtually unchanged. Prioritisation of 'macro stability' subordinated the development programme for industrial development to the logic of tight macroeconomic policy, a lean state and trade liberalisation.
b) Leaving the power of the monopolies that dominated the economy during apartheid and white minority control entrenched. Broad Based BEE has not happened at the scale required to fundamentally change the patterns of ownership, but has co-opted a small elite, while reinforcing the power of white capital. Consequently the economy in the first decade has failed to respond to high levels of poverty, unemployment and inequalities.
c) Using the bourgeois media and embedded journalists to pursue factional battles within the movement, by leaking damaging information against opponents, character assassination of opponents, spreading untruths and damaging allegations in the media and launching media trials.
d) Using state institutions, the judiciary and SABC, to unfairly target opponents, which has led to untold damage to the standing of the judiciary in the eyes of many.
e) Using state power to distribute patronage and build a reward system for loyal friends, which led to the appointment of people with no capacity to lead important areas of transformation. This developed a culture where mediocrity was tolerated and talented individuals sidelined for factional reasons.
f) Corruption and deepening of the culture of accumulation with increasing blurring of lines between political and business interests. On occasions the divisions centred on frustrated expectations and the entitlement mentality to government tenders.
Progress post 1994 is noteworthy but is nowhere near achieving the basic demand of the NDR to build a non-racial, non-sexist and equal society. We need to prioritise job creation, agrarian transformation and meeting basic needs as the centrepiece of our economic policies. We must open a new chapter in Alliance relations to ensure mass involvement in the transformation project.
Ultimately, the mass base remains our insurance and source of power against the entrenched power of capital and those defending minority privileges. All efforts must therefore be directed at reinforcing and strengthening mass power, though this alone must be welded to the leverage enjoyed by the movement in the state and other spheres of influence.
A qualitative shift in our politics and practice will entail at least:
a) A functioning Alliance that determines strategy and deployment jointly.
b) The translation of ANC and Alliance policies into clear state programmes, and organisational arrangements to guide this.
c) Internal cohesion and unity of all formations of the Alliance.
d) A clear programme to reverse the cultures that have erupted in the recent past.
e) The creation of an apparatus to manage the day-to-day affairs of the Alliance.
f) A common approach to capital, domestic and international.
g) An organisational programme to build the ANC and the Alliance on the ground.
Ours is a revolutionary struggle that seeks to radically change our society.
For some the NDR constitutes the destination and for others it is a means to create a socialist future, but what unites all of us is the belief in fundamental and thoroughgoing change of society. We all agree that we are far from achieving the goals of the NDR but that the struggle must be advanced under changed domestic and international conditions.
Comrades,
The Economic Summit must emerge with:
a) A clear statement on how the Polokwane Resolutions will be taken forward and implemented.
b) An engagement with government, as agreed at the Alliance summit, on an approach to manage the transition over the next 6 to 7 months.
c) A manifesto which must elaborate the ANC and Alliance approach to transformation.
The campaign against crime and on health and education and the election must be used to launch a concerted Alliance strategy to revitalise our organisation at street and workplace levels, together with a mass political education programme to raise the level of consciousness of our people.
We need a united and coherent leadership particularly from the two socialist formations in the Alliance: the SACP and COSATU so we can act consciously to strengthen the current leadership of the ANC and the Alliance as a whole.
We must confront the sources of divisions and ensure that we fight for our space but without compromising ourselves in the leadership battles as we approach the list processes. The single biggest driver of division in the alliance remains on failure to agree on the role of the alliance and the coordination structures needed. At the May 2008 Alliance Summit we reached an agreement that the alliance as a whole is the political center. We need to define this beyond that political statement. COSATU demanded an Alliance Pact or an agreement on a clear programme of action and on governance. We are here to listen to the SACP debates on how they would take forward the demand for a reconfigured alliance.
COSATU is committed to take an initiative to strengthen the SACP's capacity.
We recognise the reality that we are a federation of unions that has set itself the task of achieving socialism. In our ranks we have communists but that does not make us a vanguard party. We are only a leader of the organised working class and our strategy involved making a qualitative contribution in the overall working class struggle. But all these do not make us a Communist Party. Now and again we must deal with the inherent contradictions of a trade union movement and on among other its reformist character. We therefore need a Party to play the role of providing political leadership together with our leading layer of cadres.
COSATU has a responsibility to build a strong a Communist Party whose ideological capacity and working class policy alternatives are beyond reproach. As thing stand now the party has only one full time officials and that has severely hampered its impact at all levels of engagement.
The climate under which we meet poses both threats and opportunities. We must grasp the nature of the threats and opportunities to re-unify the movement and reconnect with the mass base.
As this generation of activists we face the task to restore the dignity of the movement and prosecute the revolution to new heights. We can use the anti crime, election and the health and education campaigns as launch pads to reconnect with the mass base and build a popular movement for transformation.
Thank you for inviting us, COSATU wishes you the best as you confront the challenges we face.
