South Africa Hit By Strike As Left Challenges Anc Leadership

South African trade unions have launched one of the biggest national strikes of the post-apartheid era in a move widely seen as spearheading the left's challenge to win control of the ruling African National Congress ahead of next year's presidential election.

The unions called out hundreds of thousands of members in support of public sector workers who have already been on strike for a fortnight, forcing schools to close and hospitals to treat only emergency cases. Municipal workers joined the strike today, shutting down rubbish collection, maintenance of power supplies and public transport.

The unions wanted a 12% wage increase but have lowered their demand to 10%. Mr Mbeki's government today increased its offer to 7.25%, well below inflation.

Striking workers joined protests in major cities including Johannesburg where some held up signs reading: "The ANC government is a replica of the then apartheid government."

Millions of children have been kept out of school just ahead of their exams. The government has fired hundreds of striking nurses and sent soldiers into some hospitals to work in the wards and protect staff who have not joined the protest.

Critics say the strike has already cost lives after paramedics attending to accident victims were turned away from some hospitals, and a baby died after nurses refused to allow its mother in to a hospital.

Underpinning the strike is the looming power struggle for control of the ANC at its national congress in December ahead of next year's general election. South Africa's trades union confederation, Cosatu, which has 1.8 million members, is part of the ruling alliance with the ANC and the Communist party. Its leadership has fallen out badly with Mr Mbeki over economic policy, accusing him of enriching a small black elite at the expense of the majority of poor.

Public sector workers are a prime example of qualified workers who survive on low pay. Nurses earn as little as £250 a month. Hospital cleaners are paid about £120 a month after many years service.

Jovial Rantao, political columnist for Johannesburg's Star newspaper, described the strike as a political strategy beyond pay issues.

"This is war, a show of force by the unions after 12 years of being bludgeoned into submission in the ruling alliance," he wrote. "In parliament, the unions have been frustrated by, among others, their failure to impose the people's budgeting process on the government. Their attempts to ram through a dole system, through which the poor would be given a monthly grant, was shot down in flames by President Thabo Mbeki."

The unions and Communist party want to put poverty at the top of the agenda at the ANC's congress and to ensure that the party's next leader, who is almost certain to be the country's next president, oversees a dramatic shift in economic priorities.

Mr Mbeki is constitutionally barred from running for president after already serving two terms but he has not ruled out trying to remain leader of the ANC, which would give him considerable influence over who becomes the party's candidate in the general election. His opponents in the ANC are already mobilizing to block any attempt by Mr Mbeki to stay on as party leader.

Cosatu is backing Jacob Zuma, the populist and controversial former deputy president who could face corruption charges in the coming months.

Mr Mbeki has accused the unions of "selfish own interest". He defended his record in parliament earlier this week, telling MPs that the economy has "been growing for eight solid years, longer than ever before in the recorded economic history of our country".

But critics on the left say that the principal beneficiaries of the booming economy, as well as black economic empowerment programs aimed at redressing the wrongs of apartheid, have been a narrow elite that has become extremely rich.