TOP LABOUR LEADER OFFERS ONE-MONTH SURRENDER

Oh wow! The politics in the country is someone strange, just when I think I have a handle on it, I lose the plot again.

Why is it that we have to have leaders who are either radical left or radical right - what, precisely is the problem with having a balanced middle ground.

Then of course there is this constant 'theiving' by the rich, so that they can get even richer at the expense of the poor - who just get - well poorer, and the some people who live their lives on a soap box gets up to cry and whine about the poor getting poorer and it is usually the person who has the stickiest fingers who cries and whines the longest and the loudest!

Amazing!

Top labour leader offers one-month surrender
October 04 2007 at 11:18PM

Willy Madisha, the president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), has offered to step down temporarily, pending an investigation into a missing R500 000 donation, the South African Press Association (Sapa) reported on Thursday. Madisha, seen as a relative moderate within the powerful labour federation, which is in a formal coalition with the ruling African National Congress, has in the past been criticised for being too friendly with President Thabo Mbeki's inner circle.

Citing a report by state broadcaster SABC, Sapa said that Madisha agreed to step down for one month after an internal Cosatu meeting on Thursday to discuss the matter.


If Madisha was ultimately forced to surrender his position it could clear the way for a more radical leader to assume the reins of the labour federation, which has more than one million supporters across the country.

Cosatu is angry over Mbeki's centrist policies, which it believes have sidelined the interest of workers in favour of the business community. The labour federation recently endorsed ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma, a bitter rival of Mbeki, as its candidate to take over as president of the ruling party at its congress in December.