For the ANC to maintain its electoral mandate of putting the country first, it must be able to first deal with state capture and corruption.
This was the message that emanated from a joint media briefing by the ruling party's alliance partners, COSATU and the SACP, ahead of a planned national strike on Wednesday.
"The strike is about sending a message to both government and private sector that as workers and citizens we are tired of corruption," said COSATU general-secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali.
"We are standing up against the cancer of corruption that is eroding our gains and also undermining our democracy."
He said the strike is about "mobilising against a predatory elite".
Ntshalintshali made reference to the 38 percent unemployment rate and fruitless and wasteful expenditure, which in the 2015-2016 financial year, was at R1.37 billion.
He also took a dig at South African Airways boss Dudu Myeni and Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba.
"The Gupta network is trying to infiltrate and ultimately hijack the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) so that they can lay their grubby fingers on the workers' retirement savings...[Gigaba] is going ahead with attempts to use workers' retirement savings to bailout the captured State-Owned Enterprises," he said.
"Myeni has been nothing but a one-woman tornado that has created havoc and chaos wherever she has been deployed."
SACP first deputy secretary general Solly Mapaila, who sat next to Ntshalintshali at the briefing, said of the ANC's core mandates is accountability.
"The president (Jacob Zuma) himself is at the centre of corruption in government. It is important that we need an accountable, democratic government. The ANC has to understand its own electoral mandate," Mapaila said.