The African National Congress's (ANC's) top leadership kicked off a closed meeting in Johannesburg on Friday, side-stepping any suggestions that it may turn into a heated alliance partner debate.

Spokesperson Jackson Mthembu shrugged off assertions that the weekend talks were likely to be tense between officials of the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

"What might be heated might be the bilaterals when we talk about how we relate to one another," he said.

Mthembu was referring to an upcoming bilateral meeting between the ANC and the SACP, during which the booing of ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema was to be discussed.

He was unable to say when the bilateral meeting would take place.

The ANC national executive committee (NEC) would focus on taking forward President Jacob Zuma's anniversary statement, delivered in Kimberley last weekend.

The talks, in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, would include the "need for cohesion" in the alliance which Zuma stressed in his address.

"Without singling out that issue, the entire January 8 statement will be up for discussion. The President did stress on the need for cohesion," said ANC spokesperson Brian Sokutu earlier this week.

Zuma conceded, in his anniversary address, that more needed to be done to boost relations.

"We consult each other and work together on key issues and programmes that affect our people. However, much more needs to be done to improve the alliance relations at national and sub-national levels," he said.

The party's top brass would be in attendance, with the alliance leadership and government representatives joining the talks on Saturday.

"We will have director-generals and ministers who are not members of the ANC NEC in attendance," Mthembu said.

The meeting would precede an upcoming Cabinet lekgotla.

Participants would mull local government problems, after Zuma highlighted the issue in his roadmap for 2010.

Cosatu affiliate, the SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu), this week expressed its disappointment over comments made by Zuma regarding local government.

The President said that municipal workers should not hold leadership positions in political parties. The blurred political and administrative roles hampered delivery at local level.

Samwu saw this as an attempt to "depoliticise and deunionise" the public service.

It said it would discuss the matter with the ANC's leadership, offering it an opportunity to "clarify or apologise" for Zuma's comments.

Samwu president Sam Molope said the union has taken the matter up with Cosatu, whose national office bearers would raise it with the ANC leadership over the weekend.

A briefing would be held after the three-day lekgotla which is closed to the media.