South Africa's ruling allies in talks on policy dispute

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- South African President Thabo Mbeki on Monday led talks with his party's communist and labor allies on differences over economic and social policies straining their ruling partnership.

Officials said that Mbeki opened a meeting Monday morning between the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the 1.8 million-strong Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

They declined to say where the talks were taking place.

An ANC spokeswoman said the talks were scheduled to go on for the rest of Monday, adding that the discussions had started amicably.

"This is a very important meeting and all the parties are applying their minds to seek a sense of a common understanding about how they take South Africa forward," she said.

A top COSATU official said the discussions would focus on the government's macro-economic policies and proposed labor law reforms.

"We are going to discuss a broad range of issues and the recent differences that we've seen," the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

The alliance -- forged ahead of the 1994 elections that ended white rule -- has been under pressure for much of this year. Organized labor and the Communists have criticized some ANC policies that they say are undoing the objectives of the anti-apartheid struggle.

Central to the dispute are amendments proposed to make the country's labor laws less restrictive in line with demands from business for policies to help lure investors and bring down chronic unemployment.

About a third of South Africa's economically active population of 15 million are unemployed.

Labor analysts estimate that 500,000 jobs have been lost in South Africa since 1994, when the ANC won power and opened the country's economy to global competition.

But an economist said that Monday's talks were unlikely to yield a major policy shift by the ANC, as the party could not afford to back down from its commitment to fiscal discipline.

"I'm not expecting any fireworks to come out of the meeting," Tony Twine, an economist at think-tank Econometrix, told Reuters.

"Macro-economic policy is not something that you can...carve segments out of and replace easily. So I doubt if there can be any concessions on that front," he said.

He added that the only policy concession might be around labor legislation amendments, which were not a key component of the broader macro-economic policy framework, known as GEAR.

"I expect the labor legislation to be the kernel of the meeting today and maybe the ANC may offer COSATU some crumbs on this," said Twine.

COSATU and its Communist allies have blamed the four-year-old GEAR strategy for job losses from privatization and tighter spending controls.

GEAR's aims include cutting the country's budget deficit by tightening government spending.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For more Africa news, myCNN.com will bring you news from the areas and subjects you select.

See related sites about Africa

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.