Typical rhetorical bull…..! This statement sounds like a “Don Quichotte” type of utterance. Define your “real” enemies or you seem to be fighting wind mills.

Similar to the famous and much lauded word “transformation”.

At several occasions where this “transformation” was promoted, I simply asked “what do you want to transform and from what into what?”. I am still waiting for answers other than “addressing black/white numbers” or other waffle.

I have attended many meetings defining projects which could take 30 minutes. The key question: “who is going to do ‘what’ and ‘when’?” will take the rest of the day.

Pragmatism does not seem high on the list in SA circles. Talking about solving problems is a lot easier than doing it. Meetings in a first class country estate are much more fun than getting your hands dirty while cleaning shit.

I must admit that I have recently seen a little more of this “direct speech” coming from some of our political animals. Maybe protests with burning tyres and stone throwing are the way to attract the attention of politicians while fun was had by all.

A good coalition is not necessary “weak”. Our African brothers can proof that us that Ubuntu is alive and well by creating a strong coalition to the benefit of the country. The coalition partners can keep each other in check on all evils of the one party system.

As Traps says, the coalition is only useful at the polls and successfully so. It remains with the voters to break the stranglehold by spreading their votes around.

If the non-voters (30%?) can be convinced to vote any other party (forget what they stand for for now) but the ANC, there will be a dent in the ANC.

All we need is a serious campaign to address non-voters after some serious research into the reason why they do not vote. Remember that voter apathy kept the NP in power!!!

With the useless and irrelevant opposition parties such as the DA and COPE, COSATU and the SACP are the only effective forces that moderate the behaviour of the ANC.

Given the fact that COSATU has the highest registered membership exceeding DA, ANC and COPE combined, the ANC cannot dismiss and ignore the COSATU repeatedly.

It is better for the ANC to have “friendly” fire from COSATU within the alliance than outside. COSATU can easily render the country ungovernable through strikes and agitating many mass based service delivery protests without holding back if it is outside of the ANC alliance. COSATU operating outside the alliance and agitating for its policies like ending inflation targeting, more state intervention in economy and socialism would bring political and economic instability.

DA, COPE and other opposition parties would be happy with the alliance split but would not gain any support. DA and COPE do not differ with the ANC’s economic policies and their policies and politics are not pro-poor. Beyond confessing the wrongs and weaknesses of the ANC, opposition parties do not exists in townships and rural areas where most votes are. Neither, can opposition parties mobilise at a massive scale to threaten the ANC.

Overall, COSATU and the left are the only effective alter ego to the ANC within the alliance.

The real victories we must score must be against our real enemies and not against other comrades. We must not allow the situation such that we engage in fake revolutionary posturing so that our mass base, which naturally wants speedy transformation and the fulfillment of its material needs on an urgent basis, accepts charlatans, who promise everything that is good, while we all know that these confidence tricksters are telling the masses a lie. Thabo Mbeki, SACP 10th Congress, 1998

Is the truth not that the ANC “broad church” is in reality a (polygamous) marriage of convenience between partners with very different views on Economic (and other) matters?
Surely Cosatu and SACP wield FAR more influence within the alliance than they would if they contested elections as separate parties (garnering what percentage of the popular vote – less than 5% – 10% each? The performance of PAC and AZAPO at the polls suggests possibly so).
For the ANC, the big (only?) benefit of the alliance is at the polls.

If either COSATU or SACP sincerely believed that they could attaract a significant percentage of the popular vote (say over 20%,) then I am very sure that they would contest elections as an independent entity.

Perhaps COSATU and SACP really should stand for election as separate entities – IF (a massive if) they could get a decent share of the vote, they could form a coalition government with ANC and ENSURE that their social and economic policies were heeded and in part at least, implemented.

Whilst I am no great fan of organised labour, I do respect and have a lot of empathy for some of their views on governance, poverty alleviation, social services etc.

@ benzol – how I yearn for a weak coalition government in SA with no single big party able to call the shots!

I challenge you to tell us what we do not know already. You seemed to have collected and rehashed bits of information from the newspapers (both print and online), with neither analytical accounts of what this whole recycled “conflict in the alliance” means to the body politics nor a tentatively prognosticated focus on what this whole conflict brings both the “spectators” and “role players” in the near- and distant future of this country.

Your bemoaning over “[the conflict] … provid[ing] a breeding ground for ongoing conflict within the alliance and the sooner the members come to grips with that concept the sooner they will begin assessing their long-term solutions” makes you sound like a brainwashed and overzealous defender of the ever-elusive and perpetually indecipherable “Alliance-centred democratic revolution” – which every Tom, Dick and Harry within the ANC-SACP-COSATU axis of evil has fashionably developed a penchant for incoherently muttering about.

I am sure you can do better than this, Traps.