New Cosatu president explains why federation chose both ANC and SACP

Cosatu has refused to choose between the ANC and the SACP, with its new president warning that picking a side would have split a fragile tripartite alliance.

Freshly elected Cosatu president Mike Shingange has explained why the federation “strategically” decided to back both the ANC and the SACP before the November 4 local government elections.

Shingange, a former National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) president, replaced Zingiswa Losi, who was elected general secretary at the federation’s congress on October 14.

In a candid podcast interview with Sunday World, Shingange described how difficult it was to back both the warring ANC and SACP. It would have been suicidal for Cosatu to pick a side, he said.

The tripartite alliance has been in paralysis since December 2024, when the SACP’s special congress confirmed a decision to contest elections independently of the ANC.

Attempts by the ANC to persuade the communist party to review the decision came to nothing. This culminated in an ANC national executive committee decision earlier this year to ask members of both organisations to choose which side to campaign for in the November 4 polls.

Cosatu had said for a long time that it would take a firm decision at its congress. There, it resolved to back both allies. Shingange calls the decision a “super resolution” taken to ensure the longevity of the alliance.

“The SACP said it contested the election independently because we are three independent organisations … The alliance is a coming together of three independent organisations,” he said.

“We want the alliance to be united. The ANC has said so; the SACP has said so. If you choose the SACP or the ANC, how do we proceed and say you are in the alliance when you’ve chosen one of them and discarded or rejected the other?”

Shingange said the decision was further complicated because Cosatu’s affiliates had taken different positions before the congress. As the responsible parent, he said, Cosatu had to embrace all its children, with their different preferences.

“You will know that Satawu [South African Transport and Allied Workers Union] and Samwu [South African Municipal Workers’ Union] have constitutionally taken decisions to support the ANC and are campaigning actively. Nehawu and NUM [National Union of Mineworkers] have been clear that ‘we are going with the Communist Party’ and they have been campaigning actively. They are not leaving Cosatu.”

Taking a side would ultimately have liquidated Cosatu and split a fragile federation, Shingange added. It would also have isolated the unions on the side Cosatu did not choose.

He believes Cosatu did well not to take a binding decision over a temporary cold war between the ANC and the SACP.

“We’re not going to crack ourselves as a federation and as an alliance on an event that is temporary, which is the elections. The alliance doesn’t exist for elections. In fact, the alliance brought about the election; it is not the election that brought about the alliance.”

Shingane admitted the alliance was troubled. Cosatu was determined to resolve this after the elections, when it plans to convene an alliance council of all three partners. “If the alliance were a patient, I would say it’s critical but stable … but certainly not on …[its] deathbed.”

Meanwhile, the crisis at metalworkers union Numsa deepened after regional leaders forced a central committee (CC) meeting to go ahead on Friday, despite general secretary Irvin Jim’s attempt to cancel it. The CC resolved to strip Jim and other national office-bearers of their responsibilities. Jim has led Numsa since 2008.

The CC is Numsa’s top decision-making body between congresses. Regional leaders said the last-minute cancellation was unacceptable, particularly because it was the second attempt to host a CC meeting. They said the constitution allowed them to continue because they had a quorum for a reconvened meeting.

Leaders from Sedibeng, Hlanganani, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Johannesburg held the meeting in Benoni. They resolved that Jim and other national office bearers must not be involved in organising the union’s national congress, scheduled for November 30 to December 4.

Nkosinathi Makhanya, Numsa’s Mpumalanga chairperson, said the CC raised concerns about the conduct of the national office bearers (NOBs) and decided to strip them of their duties and responsibilities. It has appointed a task team to ensure that regional congresses and the national congress proceed on their scheduled dates, while a national executive committee (NEC) meeting is awaited to discuss the alleged irregular conduct of the office bearers.

“On the status of the president and the general secretary, the central committee took a conscious decision that their conduct will be subjected to the special NEC that we are planning on convening, because the NEC is the only structure that will deal with the conduct of the national office-bearers,” Makhanya said.

“In the main, the NOBs would be the ones tasked to prepare for the national congress. Some of those duties, the central committee has taken and we have given them to this task team.”

The developments follow a court judgment on Thursday. It found that Numsa’s NOBs could not unilaterally restrict the participation and voting rights of delegates from the Mpumalanga region while a complaint about their regional congress was unresolved.