The "stage-managed" resignations from the ANC were intended to convince ordinary people that the ANC was in crisis, the Food and Allied Workers' Union said on Sunday.

Spokesperson Dominique Swartz said this intended goal was "assisted by sections of the media".

"We welcome their flop convention with pathetic outcome because a group of disgruntled former leaders wanted numbers at all costs, including of basic principles of decency, by clubbing with right-wing parties such as DA (Democratic Alliance) and UDM (United Democratic Movement), a non-identity one-man party of a confused Holomisa," said Swartz.

She said the convention did not raise any policy proposals regarding socio-economic conditions facing the masses of workers and the poor.

"The nation has been waiting for their evidence of how the ANC leadership, few months after Lekota and his other ilk were democratically ousted from leadership positions they occupied for ten years, has deviated from the Freedom Charter and the constitution of the republic."

Lekota had to explain why he had deviated from the "will of people" principle when he told people of Khutsong that they would be relocated regardless of their wishes, Swartz said.

"We wish this black DA, representing the interests of some of the black empowered black business and black professionals not to use the genuine grievances of workers and poor to mobilise them into this new monster, which will not represent their interests but that of the cigar-smoking and whisky-drinking elite."

The union called on the ANC not to legitimise the group by engaging with it, as president Kgalema Motlanthe had suggested.

Sapa