Cosatu has called on the ANC national executive committee (NEC), due to meet on Friday this week, to discuss the possible reinstatement of criminal charges against President Jacob Zuma, Eyewitness News reports.
"The president is no longer the centre that is holding. He is no longer providing the kind of leadership that not just the ANC, but the country needs. The country is really leaderless," Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said, adding that the charges against the president could affect his decision-making.
"We do not think a president, who is on the defensive, should be given the reigns."
News24 reports that Cosatu and the SA Communist Party (SACP) threatened to convene the tripartite alliance "with or without the ANC". The SACP has backed Cosatu's planned 27 September national strike over state capture and unemployment.
"The SACP and Cosatu will be making every attempt to sensitise the urgent, inescapable necessity for the alliance to function optimally. The absence of democratic, consensus-seeking consultation on the direction of our shared national democratic revolution has created a gulf of leadership affecting both the alliance and society as a whole," they said in a combined statement.