ActionSA's highest decision making body, the senate, has taken a decision to cut all ties with the DA in Tshwane.
This was revealed at the party’s Gauteng imbizo by party leader Herman Mashaba on Saturday. Mashaba has been unwavering in his opinion that the DA has been a poor partner. ActionSA is in a coalition arrangement with the DA in Tshwane and holds the position of deputy mayor.
The decision means ActionSA is likely to form a government with the ANC and the EFF after voting out DA mayor Cilliers Brink in two weeks.
ActionSA and the ANC are said to have an agreement in principle that the Mashaba-led party will occupy the mayoral seat while the ANC takes the speaker position.
This agreement is said to have been part of the informal talks the parties have had since clinching a deal to install the ANC’s Dada Morero as mayor of Johannesburg last month.
However, the deal may be stopped in its tracks as some in the ANC believe that its national leaders prefer a stable arrangement that involves the DA. Attempts to reach Luthuli House yesterday failed.
Announcing the decision to cut ties with the DA, Mashaba said his party was “free at last”.
“If one looks at our performance in the recent elections, I can tell you without any shadow of doubt that one of the contributing factors to our performance was our association with the so-called multiparty charter,” said Mashaba.
He told party supporters that he was aware that most of them had always been against ActionSA's decision to join the DA-led charter, previously called the moonshot pact, which was formed ahead of the elections.
“Our partners in the coalition arrangement [DA] took advantage of this, exploited us, abused us. I’m glad to announce to you that the senate took a decision yesterday [Friday] that ActionSA in Tshwane is no longer going to be part of this multiparty charter,” he said.
According to Mashaba, his party will take the two weeks ahead of the scheduled motion of no confidence in Brink to formulate a coalition government.
He said its success or failure in forming a coalition with other parties would determine how they vote on the motion.
“Please give us a chance within the next week or two to see if we can get other parties to work with us to form a government in the City of Tshwane,” he said. “I believe there’s a motion of no confidence coming on the 26th of this month. If I manage to conclude a successful government, a government that’s going to serve all South Africans, all people of Tshwane in particular, the suburbs, townships, informal settlements, villages, if I can put together that government with other political parties then we will vote to remove the current mayor.”
Mashaba has been vocal about his frustrations with how the DA-led government was going about service delivery in Tshwane, suggesting that poor areas were being ignored.
The party took a decision to conduct a research study in the past two weeks to confirm this notion and it appears the party is satisfied that its view on service delivery to poor black areas was correct.
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