Political parties are running out of time to reach coalition agreements with some negotiations in key metros having collapsed.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said yesterday he had “closed the door” on talks with the EFF after Julius Malema’s party proposed that the ANC be included in talks.
Mashaba told the Sunday Times his party would meet the DA in the hope of reaching a deal before Tuesday’s council sitting in Johannesburg.
According to the Municipal Structures Act, political parties have until November 23 to form governments, which is 14 working days after the election results were declared. In cases of hung councils, by-elections could be declared within 90 days. These would need to be declared by the provincial MEC for co-operative governance & traditional affairs.
The EFF and ActionSA need to co-operate with either the DA or the ANC to form governments in major metros. The DA is unwilling to work with the EFF, but will most likely do so with the FF+.
Mashaba’s rejection of the EFF could lead Malema’s party to seek a coalition with the ANC and with smaller parties.
The EFF and the ANC met this week and are also scheduled to meet again today, according to insiders.
The EFF proposed that the ANC back Mashaba as mayor of Johannesburg and allow the EFF to govern Tshwane. In return the EFF and ActionSA would back the ANC in Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay and eThekwini.
Several ANC leaders were warming to the EFF offer, but others were not comfortable with handing Johannesburg to Mashaba and Tshwane to the EFF.
Mashaba refused to confirm details of the deal offered to him by the EFF.
“When the EFF approached me, without knowing the deal, we were prepared to say ‘Let’s talk.’ I worked really well with them when I was the mayor [of Johannesburg]. Obviously I knew we do not have the numbers and when we looked at it, deep through this, I realised this whole thing is actually bringing the ANC through the back door.
“And last night I took it to senate [of Action SA] and senate unanimously rejected it.”
ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe said the party was perplexed by Mashaba’s remarks because it had not asked any [other] party to speak on its behalf.
“The ANC never gave any party [the right] to speak on its behalf as the ANC has a team leading the coalition negotiations and if it wants to speak to any party it will send this team, not any other party,” said Mabe.
Malema told supporters in Mthatha yesterday that the EFF wanted to govern Tshwane and was willing to see the ANC control Ekurhuleni and have Mashaba in charge in Johannesburg.
“The most painful one… is the Pretoria one, Tshwane, because if we miss an opportunity there, the Freedom Front and the DA are going to establish Afrikanerdom in Pretoria. So they will move it from Tshwane back to Pretoria,” he said.
The country might be gone and gone forever to the hands of the dogs
— Julius Malema
“And then they will move again into Potchefstroom — JB Marks [municipality]. The Freedom Front will say, ‘We are giving you Tshwane in exchange for JB Marks in North West.’ Then you have got Afrikanerdom, the dorpies of Afrikaners, in Tshwane and in Potchefstroom, and that’s a beginning of a big disaster to come.”
Malema said once parties had power, it was difficult to remove them and Afrikaners would gradually come back to “recolonise” the country.
“We are caught in between all of those things and we are trying to navigate them. Many of our colleagues do not, in other parties, have an appreciation of what is at stake here. The country might be gone and gone forever to the hands of the dogs,” he said.
Malema’s fears could be realised in Gauteng if the Western Cape arrangement between the DA and the FF+ is implemented in Tshwane.
A DA insider in the Western Cape said the party leadership had not informed them of a signed agreement yet but signs were that the party was on good terms with the FF+, which had been in a coalition with the DA in the province since 2016.
He said the FF+ was voting with the DA in the few municipalities that have already held council meetings in the province since the elections. But he said the DA would still try to win over smaller parties in the province.
Insiders said initial talks between the DA and ActionSA collapsed after the DA insisted on discussing an arrangement only in Tshwane. Tshwane is too close to call and smaller parties could decide who gets to govern.
Mashaba’s party wanted an arrangement that covered all councils where it contested elections.
“Our team met with [the DA] on Thursday … but we are still very far [apart]. We are hopeful of the outcome. But for us as ActionSA, whatever outcome, we are prepared to live with it,” said Mashaba.
ANC insiders said Mashaba’s remarks strengthened their preference for a coalition with the EFF. “That’s the only option they [EFF] have if they want to be in government. We want them to co-govern with us so that they stop swearing at us in public,” said an ANC leader.
Another ANC insider said of an ANC-EFF coalition: “It is the best deal.”
He said the stumbling block was some of the older party leaders who preferred to work with the DA.
Leaders in the DA and the ANC say there has been no formal discussion between the two parties, but the Sunday Times understands that party leaders have been talking since the results were announced.
We want them to co-govern with us so that they stop swearing at us in public
— ANC source
ANC leaders who prefer working with the DA are proposing an informal arrangement whereby the ANC would keep Johannesburg and allow the DA to govern in Tshwane. That would not be a formal coalition but would allow a return to the pre-election state. The two parties would then support each other on budgets and local government issues.
The DA federal council chair Helen Zille and deputy chair Thomas Walters would not comment.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC is racing against the clock to form governments. In eThekwini the ANC is talking to the IFP and the EFF.
“The IFP wants the human settlements cluster and the EFF wants deputy mayor. There is temptation to give them because we still get to choose officials and DCMs [deputy city managers] — these would just be political heads,” said the insider.
The ANC however is likely to go with the IFP because EFF demands are said to be “ridiculous”.
“They want a political office and absolute right to deployment, your DCMs and political deployments. According to the constitution [such officials] can be removed after a year [and] now the EFF wants to take over a political office and then a year later they fire everyone and bring in their own officials,” the insider said.
The ANC is also engaging the IFP in Newcastle where the party failed to get an outright majority. “The IFP there is likely to get a speaker or chief whip in exchange for them supporting us for mayor. Those are the discussions, otherwise nothing has been finalised,” another insider said.
The Sunday Times understands that in uMhlathuze, which includes Richards Bay in the King Cetshwayo district, there is no decision on where trade-offs will be made.
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