Cosatu in the Eastern Cape is to consider protest action, including a strike, if the corruption trial of ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma is postponed next week.

Ending its two-day provincial congress in East London yesterday, delegates resolved to mobilise support for Zuma when his trial resumed in Pietermaritzburg.

But they deferred a decision on extended protest action and yet another demand, that the charges be dropped, to its provincial executive.

This was pending a decision on the State's bid for a seven-month trial postponement.

The congress resolved to reaffirm Cosatu's central executive committee "observations" that there was a "conspiracy against comrade JZ" pursued through state organs.

Delegates appeared unanimous in support for Zuma, but the National Union of Metalworkers of SA and the SA Democratic Teacher's Union want more concerted action.

The persecution resolution also followed an allegationby the provincial secretariat that there was a "clear and sustained purge of the left" in the Eastern Cape.

The congress also deferred a decision on five controversial options for Cosatu's relationship with the ruling ANC, as the delegates from 17 union affiliates could not agree.

Most delegates were in favour of Cosatu staying within the alliance but with less close consultation with the ANC. However, they did not abandon the option of contesting elections with the SA Communist Party against the ANC.

Provincial Agriculture MEC Gugile Nkwinti lifted the lid on a potentially explosive Eastern Cape ANC document, endorsed by the provincial executive and set to be adopted next week, which is heavily critical of the national leadership and proposes that the negotiated settlement and constitution be revisited to ensure rapid transformation.

Nkwinti suggested that the ruling party was "being hijacked" by right-wing forces hostile to transformation.

This article was originally published on page 6 of Cape Argus on July 24, 2006

With acknowledgement to Christelle Terreblanche and Independent On Line.