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South Africa: Zuma re-election in trouble as largest trade union NUMSA breaks with ANC
South Africa’s largest trade union on Friday said it will no longer back the ruling African National Congress, a tectonic shift in the country’s politics ahead of elections next year.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) announced the break at a special congress of members.
“NUMSA as an organization will neither endorse nor support the ANC or any other party in 2014,” said leader Irvin Jim, who also called on President Jacob Zuma to resign.
The announcement could spell trouble for South Africa’s ruling “tripartite” alliance, which has helped the ANC coast to victory in every elections since the end of white rule in 1994.
The ANC has entered each election with vital logistic and political support from the trade union umbrella group Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) – of which NUMSA is the biggest member – and the Communist Party.
With more than 300,000 members, NUMSA is an influential source of votes, cash and grassroots organization in South African politics. Many members of NUMSA are also members of the ANC.
On Friday Numsa also called on Zuma to step down and for COSATU as a whole to withdraw its support for the ANC. “The congress called on President Jacob Zuma to resign with immediate effect because of his administration’s pursuit of neo-liberal policies which are steeped in corruption, patronage and nepotism,” said Jim.
