ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe, with credentials that include extensive trade union work, was the strategic choice to help quell workers’ resentment towards the party at Cosatu’s 14th congress last week.
But the ANC had seriously underestimated the wrath of the workers, or overestimated Mantashe’s standing in the trade union federation.
The frustration of the workers on the first day of the congress was palpable. Never before had an ANC delegation — much less one of the founders of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the largest affiliate of Cosatu — been subjected to such humiliation.
The signs were there. Just a few months earlier, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, another party leader with a background in public sector unions, had to be swept away in a police Nyala by his security team during one of Cosatu’s key annual events, its Workers’ Day rally.
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Lizeka Tandwa
Lizeka Tandwa is a political journalist with a keen interest in local government.
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