Ido Lekota

Ido Lekota

ANC chairman Mosiuoa Lekota yesterday said the alliance between his party, Cosatu and the SACP remains important if South Africa was to meet the challenges of improving the lives of its people.

He said the alliance has a history whereby the erstwhile Communist Party of South Africa played an important role of bringing to the fore the needs of the workers within the ANC programmes.

Speaking at the Cosatu central committee meeting in Kempton Park yesterday, Lekota said what brought the alliance together was the common objective of improving the lives of the South African majority and the attainment of political power in 1994 was the first step in this regard.

He went on to say that problems within the alliance were not new.

There were some disputes due to the current leadership within the alliance not being able to find common ground, but that should not detract the parties from the alliance's mission.

"Individual leaders come and go and we should not allow them to undermine the common objective that drives the alliance," said Lekota.

But Cosatu president Willie Madisha said the alliance needs to be reformulated. He also decried the fact that the labour federation was being used to mobilise votes by the ANC while being marginalised when it came to decision making.

He also said there was an untenable situation whereby "the state or the government is leading the ANC instead of the ANC leading the state".

Madisha was also critical of the fact that agreements had been reached in the alliance but not implemented.