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Tripartitie Alliance 'Dangerously Undefined'

SAPA
12 July 2000

Johannesburg The relationship between government and the tripartite alliance -comprising of the African National Congress, the SA Communist Party and the Congress of SA Trade Unions - is "dangerously undefined", Cosatu president Willy Madisha said in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

Addressing the Johannesburg Press Club, Madisha said although Cosatu remained committed to the alliance, the relationships within the body had to be re-evaluated.

"...the alliance has to find better ways to manage the imbalance in internal relationships, which sees the ANC in government and Cosatu and the SACP outside - while electoral victories and social progress still depend on the work of all three partners.

"A major problem for the alliance has been managing this situation. It has not succeeded in finding a strong solution.

This in turn reflected the difficulties the ANC faced as a political party in government, Madisha said.

Although the gains made by government since the 1994 elections were laudable, he said its economic policies had failed to attract much needed investment. This could be blamed on government's "tight monetary policies" such as inflation targeting for.

"These conservative policies have made it difficult to restructure the economy to ensure employment and investment.

"Moreover, restrictive fiscal and monetary policies did not end the investment strike by capital," he said.

Addressing transformation, Madisha said government had to play a central role in the process of redistributing wealth to the poor.

"After all, economic power still remains largely in the hands of big business, which has shown neither interest nor willingness to support substantive moves toward equality," he said.

Madisha is due to address the ANC's national congress, which began in Port Elizabeth on Monday, later this week.

Cosatu will hold its national congress in September.

source: gopher://gopher.anc.org.za/00/anc/newsbrief/2000/news0713