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| Title: | COSATU, the ANC and the Election: Whither the Alliance? |
| Authors: | Southall, Roger J. Wood, Geoffrey |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Periodical: | Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa |
| Issue: | 38 |
| Pages: | 68-81 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | African National Congress (South Africa) opposition parties black trade unions Labor and Employment Politics and Government nationalism |
| Abbreviations: | COSATU=Congress of South African Trade Unions ANC=African National Congress |
| External link: | https://d.lib.msu.edu/tran/363/OBJ/download |
| Abstract: | South Africa's 'liberation election' of 1994 registered a triumph for the 'Tripartite Alliance', which brought together the ANC with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and COSATU into a formal relationship. In the event, the relationship between COSATU and the ANC-in-government has not been free of tensions. The ANC's effective abandonment in June 1996 of the progressive Reconstruction and Development Plan (RDP) in favour of the neoliberal and fiscally conservative Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy continues to be a source of major stress. COSATU has joined the SACP in being openly critical of GEAR. This article is a reaction to an article by Adam Habib and Rupert Taylor (In: Review of African Political Economy, vol. 26, no. 80 (1999), p. 261-267), who emphasize the virtues of a break in the Alliance. They argue that only the progressive labour movement has the capacity to forge an effective parliamentary opposition and thereby to consolidate democracy. The present authors argue that Habib and Taylor's argument has no particular virtue in the political context of South Africa prior to the election of 1999. They do this in terms of 1) querying Habib and Taylor's reading of the relationship between COSATU and the ANC since 1994; 2) proposing, via reference to a recent survey of COSATU member attitudes, that there is as yet little basis amongst workers for any breach in the Alliance; and 3) suggesting that a fracture in the Alliance is likely to be extremely dangerous in the foreseeable future. Bibliogr., notes, ref. (Reaction by Adam Habib and Rupert Taylor to the present article, followed by a reply by Southall and Wood, in: Transformation, no. 40 (1999), p. 112-120, 121-125.) |
