Less than six weeks after it was re-elected with an increased majority, the African National Congress government, now under the leadership of President Thabo Mbeki, finds itself under serious challenge from, if not besieged by, protesting trade unions.
The situation is not without irony: the protesting unions are all affiliates of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, one of the ANC's main allies in the election campaign which ended in a triumph for Mr Mbeki. Since then a plunge in the gold price - now at record low level of barely more than $255 an ounce - has seen one of South Africa's oldest mines placed under the management of liquidators and its 5,000 miners confronted with the spectre of redundancy. Another six marginal mines have given notice to of their intention to retrench nearly 1,000 more miners.
The ANC government has been targeted by the National Union of Mineworkers as much as the mining companies. One reason is that it is the biggest single shareholder in the doomed mine. Another is that the mineworkers' union wants stronger government resistance to cutbacks. It also wants to ensure that the laid-off miners are given adequate redundancy packages.
The new Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs, Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, has suffered the indignity of having mineworkers picket her office. That may explain why she rashly accused the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, of reneging on a promise to consult Mr Mbeki before Britain went ahead with its plans to sell nearly half of its bullion, only to have to admit that Mr Blair had fulfilled his pledge by writing to Mr Mbeki.
The malaise, however, goes far beyond the gold-mining industry as South Africa struggles to come to terms with the post-apartheid world and the challenge of international competition in an era of globalisation.
Thus Transnet, one of South Africa's main parastatals - corporations in which the government is a major shareholder - has announced it will cut between 18,000 and 27,000 jobs in its railway subsidiary, Spoornet.
The announcement - promp ted by a huge loss incurred by Transnet in the most recent financial year - has triggered further protests from the unions, but the Public Enterprises Minister, Mr Jeff Radebe, insists that re structuring is vital to plans to make Transnet financially viable.
Even closer to home is a wage dispute between the Ministry of Public Service and Administration and three unions, all affiliates of COSATU. The Ministry insists that it cannot offer more than a 5.7 per cent increase without compromising its capacity to deliver services to the poor and, in many cases, unemployed. The unions say they will not accept less than 10 per cent and are threatening to launch a national strike.
