The ANC will announce at the end of January which coalition partnerships it will remain in or pull out of after a national review of its pacts.
ANC national executive committee (NEC) member David Makhura said the party could not remain in coalitions with parties that were not willing to serve the people.
“There are certainly municipalities where things are not improving, and the ANC will be able to announce, once it has completed the work at the end of January, [the] municipalities [in which] we are not going to participate in coalitions,” he said.
Makhura was speaking during a national task team on coalitions media briefing on the sidelines of a three-day NEC meeting in Mpumalanga yesterday, where the party is preparing for its 112th birthday bash.
The ANC is facing internal pressure to pull out of coalition arrangements with the EFF, especially in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.
Makhura said the decision was made in October last year after a framework to manage coalitions in hung municipalities was adopted in April.
Coalitions should not be about the political parties and the wheeling and dealing, but it must be that every municipal coalition must be assessed on the basis that it is really improving service delivery.
— David Makhura, ANC NEC member
Nine guiding principles came out of the framework, including that coalitions must be based on a common minimum programme, that coalition partners must have a shared set of values about governance, and that the party that has won the largest number of votes should essentially lead the coalition, among other considerations.
“The NEC concluded that there are areas where there are coalitions that are not serving the interests of the people, and this has been raised across different sectors. The NEC took a decision in October that it should review its participation in coalitions that are not working for the people,” Makhura said.
“Coalitions should not be about political parties and wheeling and dealing, but it must be that every municipal coalition must be assessed on the basis that it is really improving service delivery.”
He said work conducted by the local government interventions subcommittee had enabled the party to assess the various coalition partnerships it is now in.
“We have 81 hung councils across the country and since October, when the NEC took this decision, we have been busy reviewing and assessing [the] various municipalities where the ANC is involved in hung councils. The report of the secretary-general to the NEC was that we will complete this work at the end of January.”
The NEC did not discuss possible coalitions at the national and provincial level because it was aiming for an outright majority in this year's elections, Makhura said.
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