Smaller parties are pushing against ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba’s plans to tuck them under his party’s umbrella ahead of next year’s local government elections.
Build One South Africa (Bosa) leader Mmusi Maimane has urged them to refuse to join in as they engage in talks about how they will work together in the 2026 elections. Mashaba has proposed the formation of an “umbrella” party — similar to the coalition that won the recent elections in Botswana.
Bosa and Rise Mzansi have sent a delegation to the country to study how the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), an alliance of centrist parties, was established. It is a feat they are seeking to replicate in South Africa ahead of the next polls.
“There are some who want to claim branding, identity; we will have none of that. Some view this process as an acquisition — and we are not going to be acquired. That’s the stance we have taken.”
Mashaba’s party recently swallowed the Forum 4 Service Delivery party, which relinquished its brand and identity under ActionSA. Their erstwhile leader, Mbahare Kekana, was rewarded with Action SA’s deputy presidency for jumping ship, gaining Mashaba 42,000 members and 38 councillors in five different provinces.
A spanner in the works of the collaboration appears to be discussions around how power will be distributed, and whether some parties may leverage their electoral fortunes.
Maimane warned against insistence on a principle of proportionality, which, he says, is irrelevant to the project they are collectively working towards.
“We’ve engaged a few civil society organisations, faith-based groupings and NGOs, which I’m waiting on to get back to me. This is so that this is not just seen as a political issue. Proportionality is nonsense. Everybody has rejected it upfront.
“Must they quantify their congregants or activists to validate their representation? It’s bad mathematics.
“If you are the DA, you can argue proportionality because you’ve got 90 MPs and there is no party that will immediately surpass that shortly. You can’t say, we went from 10 to 91 seats, it is unlikely. But it is possible to do what the Patriotic Alliance has done, and go from zero to 10,” he said.
The Bosa leader told the Sunday Times it was crucial to separate the workings of parliament and political arrangements.
“It’s like the ANC/SACP alliance. The SACP can disagree with the ANC working with the DA in the GNU, but they remain in a political alliance together.
“Parliamentary co-operation under one whippery is predicated on issues that we agree on. We are not trying to have one central caucus that responds in a unitary way on all issues, because all parties have got a different agenda.
“If there are shared issues — like next week there is a budget to pass — there are a number of points we can agree on and a caucus must pronounce itself on those issues.”
However, this did not apply to issues that were “niche” to individual parties.
“You might find ACDP wanting to pronounce on sex work and its criminalisation — and we might not agree with them.”
Rise Mzansi, GOOD, UDM and the Patriotic Alliance are among the parties that have been approached.
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