Nehawu: Don’t let Zuma address Cosatu’s May Day Rally

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has received a letter from one of its biggest affiliates asking that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa address its main rally in Bloemfontein instead of ANC President Jacob Zuma.

The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a letter from National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) general secretary Bereng Shoke to his counterpart, Cosatu’s Bheki Ntshalintshali, in which the union asks him to instruct the ANC to reshuffle its deployee to the federation’s May Day Rally on Monday.

“We request the national office bearers to look into this matter and inform the ANC that comrade Zuma must be replaced by another eligible leader of the ANC, particularly the deputy president as the main speaker in the main rally,” Shoke writes in the letter.

Zuma was due to address Cosatu’s rally at the Loch Logan Park in Bloemfontein on Monday, alongside the federation’s president, S’dumo Dlamini ,and South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande.

Nehawu’s request follow’s Cosatu’s endorsement of Ramaphosa’s bid to take over the ANC presidency from Zuma at the party’s elective conference in December.

At its central executive committee last month, Cosatu unions decided to publicly call for Zuma to step down as head of state, because the president “is no longer the right person to unite and lead the movement, the alliance and the country”.

Inviting Zuma to speak at the May Day rally, Nehawu said, would “create conflicting messages to our members, workers and the public in general”.

“This possible confusion will intensify the existing instability within the movement and present a potential to further weaken Cosatu,” Shoke’s letter states.

Last week the M&G revealed that Nehawu plans to confront the Cosatu president at the federation’s upcoming central committee about his decision to attend Zuma’s 75th birthday party in Soweto.

Dlamini has publicly reiterated his support for Zuma after Cosatu’s call for the president to step down, placing him at odds with the federation’s top leaders and biggest unions.