The African National Congress (ANC) and its alliance partners need to unite and not stray from the path of achieving the national democratic revolution, the party's deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte said on Sunday.

“There have been many attempts made in the 104 years of our existence to make sure that the ANC itself is divided,” she told hundreds of workers at a May Day rally in Bloemfontein.

Duarte said there had been attempts to divide the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), an ANC alliance partner.

"It has nothing to do with the rights of workers; it has everything to do with capital having captured individuals in Cosatu. The real working class is what Cosatu should look after," she said.

She told workers, who were in a celebratory mood, that the only union federation prepared to fight for their rights was Cosatu.

"Whether people like us or don’t like us, the reality is that we have delivered for this country in hard core, tangible, real terms.

“You cannot take away from us that we have brought peace to this country. We started delivering basic services to our people. In terms of basic services we over-reached the mark that we set for ourselves.”

Duarte said the party was on the path of putting control of the economy into the hands of black South Africans.

“You cannot have a Johannesburg stock exchange with 40% belonging to foreigners and 50% belonging to white capital and 3% belonging to black capital. That cannot be right in a country where the majority of the population is black Africans. We must stick to the path,” she said.