According to Zwelinzima Vavi, the general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the ANC's victory in the national and provincial elections this week is a vote for decent jobs, for healthcare, education and rural development, and a vote against crime and corruption.

"Our victory also represents a funeral for Cope and all the other fish-and-chips political formations," he told the crowd celebrating the ANC victory outside Luthului House in Johannesburg on Thursday night.

"Our people have rejected negative politics. They don't like negative campaigning. Only people who are truthful knew who was going to win. God listens to the majority and not to the spiteful elite who are hell-bent on clinging onto positions."

Vavi admitted the Western Cape result was disappointing but not surprising. "The ANC had been deeply hurt by infighting and factional battles that have run for five years," he said.

He said that in November the polls were suggesting that the ANC would only get 18% of the vote in the province. "But following the very good work by the Cosatu unions and the ANC, particularly those deployed by the NEC, we turned the situation around," he said. "We now expect to get double that 18 percent support."

He warned that much more still needed to be done.

"Too many of our people remain unemployed," he said. "Too many of the employed are in temporary and casualised jobs or employed through the labour broking system. Our country's wealth is still unfairly distributed. Too many live in poverty, while a tiny minority control most of the country's resources."

In a rather minatory fashion Vavi warned the new government that the unions need to prepare for the next phase - "ensuring that the pledges contained in the manifesto are translated into an implementable programme to radically improve our people's lives".

He said: "We need to see that the economic policies in the manifesto are implemented vigorously, to counter the impact of the economic crisis on our people and ensure that we all share in the fruits of our labour.

"We need to translate the incredible energy and mobilisation we have seen in this campaign into a mass movement for transformation to propel our country to greater heights."

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