The people have spoken and Jacob Zuma is the new leader of the ANC. The central task facing us now is the pursuit of national unity.

The people have spoken and Jacob Zuma is the new leader of the ANC. The central task facing us now is the pursuit of national unity.

We must now review the government's pursuit of growth. We need new models to fight abject poverty, the unemployment crisis, rising inflation and runaway interest rates.

Even though government embraces what is called a mixed economy, it seems to place a priority on elements of capitalism to encourage the dominance of apartheid's private interests in the economy under the cloak of black economic empowerment. The aim is to create a black middle class which depends on the patronage of white capital for its existence and survival.

In practice, this betrays the struggle for fundamental social transformation to conquer the dominance of the apartheid capitalist system that has extremely strong racial characteristics.

Lest we forget, the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer under this increasing wave of patronage. In order to rapidly achieve the goals of the national democratic revolution, the new leadership needs to convene an alliance summit to produce programmes that will meet the basic needs of the poor in agreement with the Freedom Charter.

Morgan Phaahla, Ekurhuleni