Publication	Cape Argus
Date	2005-11-26
Reporter	Angela Quintal
Web Link	www.capeargus.co.za

A top unionist urged this week that the Jacob Zuma saga should not become "an ethnic and personal issue", but rather be viewed as part of the ongoing class and ideological struggle within the ANC.

This despite others within the alliance believing that Zuma does not represent the Left.

Cosatu president Willie Madisha, who is also the president of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union, told the union's national general council on Thursday that while labour had not yet endorsed any candidate as a future president or given Zuma unconditional support, the ANC deputy president "remained in the running until he was tried and convicted".

Noting that the first decade of democracy belonged to the rich, he said the SA Communist Party and Cosatu should ensure that the second decade was in the interests of the workers and the poor. Madisha urged for unity of the working class "in the face of the current onslaughts by capital and their allies".

"In this respect the defence of the deputy president of the ANC remains an important task", he said.

Madisa repeated Cosatu's view that it would support Zuma, but took "very seriously the current rape allegations" against him.

The Zuma saga also related to the succession debate within the ANC, with "the pro-capitalist elite clearly trying to impose its agenda on to the country", Madisha said.

Meanwhile, the SACP's extended central committee began a three-day meeting yesterday in which SACP deputy secretary Jeremy Cronin's internal paper on post-apartheid South Africa was to be discussed.

Cronin has described Zuma as a "congress traditionalist with a strong working class/peasant demeanour about him", but who did not "represent the left within the ANC alliance".

The time was ripe for a principled ANC-led offensive against corruption and a radical review of the "doleful history of black economic empowerment", he said.

The Young Communist League (YCL) also met this week where it endorsed its current support for Zuma amid divisions within its ranks over whether this was the correct route to go.

YCL deputy national secretary Mazibuko Jara is among those communists who believe that support for Zuma is "reckless".