Former defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota's announcement that he intended to leave the ANC would lead him and those who followed him on a disastrous path, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Wednesday.

"We are calling on them to reconsider the disastrous path they have chosen," he said in Midrand at a Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union conference on crime.

Divorcing the ANC

Vavi said the Congress of SA Trade Unions "deeply regretted" the announcement made by Lekota earlier on Wednesday that he was serving the party with divorce papers.

"The road that they have chosen can only go to an endless winter in the wilderness."

Vavi said that Lekota's actions — and those who had also agreed to resign from the party in the media — was a "pure publicity stunt".

He said accusing the ANC of veering away from the Freedom Charter, its traditions and principles, in an open discussion in society, would not succeed.

"In order to avoid engagement with the ANC on the matters, they chose to take a route of open letters and press conferences where the ANC would not be represented to counter the misinformation and lies that they [Lekota and others] continue to generate."

The real reasons, Vavi said, for the resignations was that some members refused to embrace internal democracy and that they were not prepared to accept fair, transparent, and democratic processes in which they had previously participated.

Vavi argued that nine months after the Polokwane conference, some ANC members could not say they had suddenly discovered that some policies were not in line with their thinking.

Just undying love for Mbeki?

A second reason would be their undying love and loyalty to former president Thabo Mbeki.

Thirdly, he said their actions showed ill-discipline of the worst kind as they could have aired their grievances within the structures of the ANC.

He said if they had been loyal to the ANC, they would have taken the opportunity to engage with it, not with it through the media.

He said the formation of a new political party was a class action that emanated from a small section of South Africa's elite.

"They are not happy, apparently, with an ANC that is the home of the workers and the poor."

Earlier, SA Communist Party secretary general Blade Nzimande said a new political party would fail because its leadership was ill-disciplined.

"Coalition of the ill-disciplined"

Addressing the same conference on crime, Nzimande said: "This is nothing but a coalition of the ill-disciplined who cannot accept democratic processes inside the country... the party is not going to last."

"They are continuing what they failed to do inside the ANC."

He said the ANC had been aware of Lekota's intention to form a splinter party for some time and that the recall of then president Thabo Mbeki from office was simply an excuse.

"Finally the beast is out in the open."

He said over many years the movement and the alliance had gone through difficult times and that there were strong provocations for it to split.

"The provocations at the times were initiated by those who at that time were at the helm of our movement, the ANC, including Terror Lekota.

"We refused to bow to this pressure. The ANC and the alliance is not private property."

The UDM 'failed'

Nzimande said attempts to change the ANC had failed dismally as had all attempts to break away and start a new party such as the "dwindling UDM" led by Bantu Holomisa.

"He [Holomisa] is like a resident fulltime analyst of the ANC and the alliance. He tells us absolutely nothing about his dwindling UDM.

Nzimande said there was too much focus on "infantile high level intellectual theoretical discourse" about a threat to the Constitution and not enough attention paid to the major problems facing the country.

"The biggest threat to our Constitution is rampant crime. What's the point of having a Constitution if we're not going to live long enough to enjoy it." he said.

Other problems included unemployment, transforming the criminal justice system, HIV/Aids, rising food prices and landlessness.

"But all these issues are taking a back seat. The whole country comes to a standstill on a trial that is a mistrial," he said referring to the decision to prosecute ANC president Jacob Zuma declared invalid.

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Sapa