. (David Harrison/M&G)
It’s going to be a bloodbath, was the sentiment from an ANC national working committee (NWC) member, reflecting on the upcoming extended party meeting where a strategy on how to approach possible coalitions after this week’s local government elections will be discussed.
In one corner is ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa and his strongest ally Gwede Mantashe, who are expected to canvass the party for a coalition with the Democratic Alliance (DA) in a bartering exchange of the metros and hung municipalities.
In the other corner, treasurer general Paul Mashatile and possibly deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte, who will be advocating that the ANC takes its chances with the smaller parties and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
Five senior sources in the ANC have spoken anonymously with the Mail & Guardian, saying among the main topics on the agenda will be the party’s diagnosis of its election campaign and its overall performance.
Two NWC members each told the M&G that the election campaign strategy was at the root of the ANC’s poor performance.
They said many in the national executive committee (NEC) were surprised when the ANC deviated from its initial strategy of localising the campaign and rather opting to base it on an apology tour.
“We were running 267 campaigns and what we did was to turn it into one campaign as if it’s national elections and everything followed through. Every municipality should have had its campaign, the way it’s normally done. I have never seen an organisation that doesn’t want to claim its gains,” one NWC member said. “We have provided millions of houses, roads are tarred. An incumbent who continually goes out to apologise and talk about all these big things of investment … You don’t talk about refuse collection, nothing. This issue about profiling the president (Ramaphosa) over the ANC was a major setback. How do you not talk about the deliverables?”
The arrest of former president Jacob Zuma and the resignation of Zweli Mkhize have also been identified as possible reasons the party performed badly in KwaZulu-Natal. The ANC leader said Ramaphosa’s statements about an attempted insurrection during rioting triggered by the Zuma arrest and ethnic mobilisation also hurt the ANC in the province.
Meanwhile in Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, the party leaders said that nationalising the election messaging became the ANC’s Achilles heel.
One party leader said Ramaphosa and the NEC should have used the likes of Mzwandile Masina to populate a message of what the ANC had done for the metros instead of highlighting governance weaknesses.
Another area that the NWC members identified as having contributed to the weakened campaign strategy was Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan. All the NEC members in the two factions that the M&G spoke to agreed that Gordhan would need to be disciplined.
Mantashe alluded to this when he spoke to the media on Wednesday, saying that Eskom acted as the opposition of the ANC during the last leg of electioneering.
The NEC members said that the entire committee will have to account for the poor showing.
On Monday the ANC appointed Jeff Radebe as chair of its coalitions committee and Andries Nel as its secretary. The two Ramaphosa loyalists were tasked with speaking to smaller parties on possible coalitions. Radebe, who was dispatched to eThekwini to negotiate with the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal about a possible coalition arrangement with the DA, was sent packing by provincial leaders.
In a meeting with the ANC’s top six on Tuesday evening, Radebe is said to have told the officials that KwaZulu-Natal was willing to work with the EFF.
“We cannot form a coalition with the DA, that would be madness. It’s better for us strategically if we go with the EFF. They are growing and making inroads in eThekwini. If we align with them, we have a much more seamless arrangement for the future,” one provincial executive committee member said.
An NEC member said it was a mistake to send Radebe to KwaZulu Natal: “He has no pull, no weight on that side. Even if he had a workable solution, it would have taken a lot of convincing. The person who should have gone there should have been Zweli Mkhize, Willies Mchunu and even Senzo Mchunu. They understand the land, they understand the community.”
Mantashe is said to have been putting out feelers with the DA’s federal council chair Helen Zille on a possible coalition that would result in the DA retaining Tshwane and possibly eThekwini while the ANC regains Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg.
While some within the Ramaphosa faction are said to be not opposed to this, some within the NWC have vowed to fight the move, saying it would be catastrophic ahead of 2024 general elections.
“We have to look at this politically. On the eve of elections the deputy secretary general [Duarte] came out to say the enemy of the ANC is the DA. What are we saying about the character of the ANC?” one asked.
ANC leaders have argued that the party must become the opposition in some metros, with one NEC member saying while it might not be comfortable with this “it must learn”.
Malema is said to have already indicated to his top officials that he will not wrestle for mayoral positions in councils. Malema told a media briefing on Thursday that the party would also be prepared to vote for a city government in return for an agreement to implement policies and programmes, rather than for positions. Malema said he was “the happiest man”’ that the ANC had been humbled by securing less than 50 % of the vote.
Sources with inside knowledge say EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu told Mashatile the EFF was willing to go into a coalition with the ANC provided the ruling party puts the section 25 land redistribution bill back on the table. The two parties could not agree on several issues including the EFF’s demand that the bill read “nationalisation” instead of “custodianship” and to make reference to “no compensation” for expropriated land instead of “nil compensation”. The governing party then stopped all negotiations.
Other non-negotiable demands from the EFF involve the insourcing of municipal employees.
“It’s going to be an interesting two weeks. We can talk to them. The only thing is that they are inconsistent. Interestingly they don’t want to take positions. They don’t want to own up. We might be in the era of coalitions but the maturity of political parties is not there,” one ANC leader said.
An NWC member said the committee would discuss legislating coalitions. They added that there is a strong discussion to have coalition negotiations centralised and unpacked for each municipality.
DA leader John Steenhuisen seemed to be in agreement with the ANC on possible legislation of coalitions, saying while the legislation at local level may not work, it would be a viable option nationally.
“We have seen in nations like Kenya, these umbrella bodies that campaign as an umbrella coalition to unseat a government or to form a government. That may well be the future,” he said.
But Shivambu disagrees, saying legislating a coalition was tantamount to starting a new political party.
“There must never be any legislative regulation of the coalition. Now you are forming a political party once you legislate it. Coalitions must be that loose,” said Shivambu.
The ANC will likely start its formal discussions with the smaller parties before it can make any arrangements with the EFF. The Inkatha Freedom Party and the DA’s leaders have both said they will meet on the weekend to discuss coalition arrangements.
Biggest loser: For the first time ever, the ANC has received less than 50% of the votes in any election. Either it must form potentially unpalatable alliances in some of the big metros or gain experience on the opposition benches. (Rodger Bosch/AFP)
Nelson Mandela Bay
In Nelson Mandela Bay, where the DA and the ANC took 48 seats each, the Northern Alliance (NA), which garnered three seats, and other small parties aim to become the collective kingmakers. The parties were understood to be meeting on Thursday to consolidate their position and come up with a collective approach to the big parties in order to increase their bargaining power.
“We definitely want to be part of the government. We are the leaders of the second-tier parties. We are first going to consolidate on our side before we meet with the big parties in the afternoon,” an NA leader said. “There was an approach [from the DA and the ANC] but we told them to hold on a bit.”
Johannesburg
The Al Jam-ah Party, which is in a coalition with the ANC in the Johannesburg metro, is understood already to be on board to continue with the relationship in constituting a new council. Leader Ebrahim Hendricks said the party had met with the ANC leadership, including Duarte, Mashatile and elections head Fikile Mbalula, and agreed to a post-election coalition agreement. However, this would require that the ANC kept the EFF within the existing coalition.
eThekwini
The ANC’s vote slipped from 56% in 2016 to 42%. This is one of 21 hung councils in KwaZulu-Natal, where the governing party lost councils to the DA, IFP and NFP.
The ANC leadership in the city has been left scrambling by the outcome and is unable to move ahead with coalition talks until it gets the go-ahead to do so after the weekend’s NWC meeting.
“The situation is bad. We had anticipated a worse result than
2016 and 2019 but not to have performed this badly,” said a senior member of the eThekwini ANC caucus.
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