Vavi: No alliance with neoliberal DA – reports “attempt to sell newspapers”

Cape Town – The United Front would not be contesting the local government elections let alone forming an electoral pact with the DA, the movement said on Sunday after Zwelinzima Vavi confirmed he had met DA leader, Mmusi Maimane.

"If Zwelinzima Vavi met with the DA's Mmusi Maimane or anyone else of the DA or any other political formation (which is his right) he was not meeting the DA on behalf of or with any mandate of the United Front," the movement said in a statement.

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The Sunday Times reported earlier that Maimane was "courting" Vavi, a former secretary general of the ANC-aligned Congress of SA Trade Unions, as it intensified its bid to wrest power from the African National Congress in Port Elizabeth in August's local government elections.

The story caused a stir as Vavi has consistently slated the DA and its policies as an anathema to progress for the working class and the poor in South Africa.

Vavi, speaking to News24 on Sunday, said the report on their meeting was an outright effort to "sell newspapers".

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"There was a meeting between myself and Mmusi Maimane after it became obvious that no one would win the elections outright in the Nelson Mandela Bay," he said.

"He came to me and said 'Can we explore a coalition with the United Front', to which I said, 'Go and speak to them'. That is the simple truth," he said.

The UF's national working committee responded by saying, "The DA is a party that argues for neoliberalism and we see no possibility of an alliance with the DA electorally in any part of the country." – News24

Source: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/united-front-dismisses-idea-of-coalition-with-da-20160424