The coalition negotiations in Gauteng, South Africa’s commercial hub, hit a deadlock as the DA rejected the ANC’s offer of three executive seats. DA federal chairperson Helen Zille emphasized the need for proportionate representation, threatening to remain in opposition. Gauteng ANC Premier Panyaza Lesufi, backed by ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula, aims to maintain the coalition. The outcome holds significant implications for the province’s economic future and political dynamics.
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By John Matisonn
The last of the coalition agreements deadlocked last night when the DA refused the meagre terms offered by the ANC in Gauteng province, South Africa’s commercial capital that includes Johannesburg. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Gauteng ANC Premier Panyaza Lesufi is the reluctant groom at this shotgun wedding, and ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula played the unlikely best man, rushing in to save the union despite his own wayward political youth.
The Democratic Alliance has its strongest hand in Gauteng, coming in second with 28% against the ANC’s steep decline to only 34%, and DA federal chairperson Helen Zille pressed her advantage when offered only three seats to the ANC’s with on the executive of 11 (including the premier).
Zille told an evening media conference the DA would stay in opposition if the ANC did not honour its undertaking to accept proportionate representation in the Gauteng government, though she said this would not affect its place in the national and KwaZulu-Natal governments.
The DA, which has been losing the battle in the media to wily ANC spin, made the case that it is the ANC being in arrogant in Gauteng, where Lesufi has twice called a media conference to announce his executive, leaving the DA in the dark about an outcome it regards as unfair.
The DA has accepted an offer of six of the 17 committee chairs in the Gauteng legislature, but it wanted the Inkatha Freedom Party included in an executive that more fairly reflected the DA’s relative electoral strength.
The DA sees this battle as a precursor to the kind of “cohabitation” it can expect with the ANC in Gauteng, fearing a relationship of distance and subservience to the ANC once in government.
The Gauteng ANC is resistant to choosing the DA as its main partner. If left to make the decision on its own, the provincial party would likely have chosen one or both of the two populist parties, the Economic Freedom Fighters or the Mkhonto we Sizwe Party. Complicating the picture, Gauteng is the home base of the deputy president Paul Mashatile, who is in line to succeed President Cyril Ramaphosa and has long standing ties to EFF leaders.
Mbalula also had old ties to EFF leader Julius Malema, but he has been faithfully executing the ANC national leadership’s commitment to a DA partnership.
Markets and the business community see the difference been a DA coalition and allegiance to the EFF or MKP as the difference between a period of healthy growth after years of economic decline, and an economic disaster, because the populists have vowed to challenge bedrock principles in the constitution, including private property ownership.
Mbalula has nevertheless faithfully stepped in to prevent the Gauteng premier pre-emptively announcing a new cabinet that overrides the national agreement with the DA and other minority parties.
The ANC’s latest offer at the time of last night’s media conference was to allocate three executive seats to the DA and one to either the IFP or the Patriotic Alliance, according to DA officials. The PA is led by former bank robber and convict Gayton McKenzie, who the DA would prefer not to work with.
McKenzie, who has frankly admitted his criminal past and reinvented himself as a successful businessman and politician, was appointed Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture at the weekend. He is scheduled to be sworn in, along with the rest of the cabinet, today.
The Gauteng ANC’s position in the national leadership remains influential with Mashatile as the heir apparent, and some commentators fear Mashatile will take the ANC in a different direction if he takes over from Ramaphosa. But those who know Mashatile say his intentions are unclear.
He is considered extremely shrewd and a careful political strategist, who is likely to weigh up the advantages and risks carefully when the time comes. While Mashatile’s position gives the ANC Gauteng extra influence in the party, this has to be weighted against the ANC’s steep decline in electoral support in the province. The centre of gravity in the ANC as a whole is drifting steadily to the rural provinces, as its urban support is in sharp decline in most cities and towns.
Zille summed up her party’s approach in the Gauteng talks by saying the DA “can’t be a useful crutch to keep in the ANC in power.” She would rather stay out than enter a government as “co-opted hostages” whose authority will be undermined rather than respected .
She relies on Clause 16 of the statement of intent signed by the DA and the ANC at the start of the cabinet negotiations. It states:
“The government of national unity shall be constituted in a manner that reflects genuine inclusiveness of political parties that are party to this statement of intent and are represented in the National Assembly broadly, taking into account the number of seats parties have in the National Assembly and the need to advance the national interest. The president shall in constituting the executive take into account the electoral outcomes.”
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