A unique province: Former president Jacob Zuma may hold sway with the leader of the IFP, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and the presumptive Zulu monarch, Kind Misuzulu, in talks of possible ANC-IFP coalitions
With 21 municipal councils on the line in KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC in the province is under pressure to call on one of its key negotiators, former president Jacob Zuma, to begin coalition talks with Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) founder and former leader Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
According to party insiders, the ANC in the eThekwini region has made the suggestion to the provincial leaders after the IFP turned its back on any possible coalitions with the ANC this week. ANC sources in the provincial executive committee say Zuma may be the only option for the party to stand a chance at regaining some municipalities in KZN.
Zuma is also one of the few ANC leaders who can bridge the gap between premier Sihle Zikalala and the Zulu monarch, they say.
ANC provincial secretary Mdumizeni Ntuli told the Mail & Guardian that no such request had been made to the former president, adding that the ANC in the province had not made any direct attempt to engage with the IFP.
The ANC provincial players who spoke to the M&G, however, say the party must do this fast, after IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa recently announced during a press briefing that his party would not work with the ANC in the province.
The IFP was the biggest winner in KZN, taking the majority vote in 10 municipalities and increasing its prominence in councils by 112 additional seats.
“You need somebody who can convince Shenge [Buthelezi] because some of them in terms of the Zulu nationality have a belief that Cyril [Ramaphosa] does not like them. I don’t think Cyril can make a breakthrough. If Zuma is asked by the provincial leadership, he will comply because they have not been hostile to him,” one leader said.
They added that some pressure points that had led to the IFP shutting its doors on the ANC included the provincial government’s freezing of millions of rand of funds to the Zulu monarch. Should Zuma be called to speak to Buthelezi, there must also be a commitment by the president to recognise King Misuzulu according to government legislation.
“There is no certificate from the president but they say they are proceeding with ordaining the new king, which creates more rift because the government doesn’t recognise the proposed king and something must be concluded because out of fear of fruitless and wasteful expenditure, the allocation to the royal family had to be cut because there is no king who has been declared by government. We don’t subsidise an office, we subsidise an incumbent,” the provincial insider said.
Meanwhile the ANC’s committee charged with negotiating with other parties nationally was expected to have intense talks with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on 11 November, while the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) federal council chair Helen Zille will meet with ActionSA’s John Moodey.
The M&G recently reported that the DA’s federal executive committee was warming to the idea of electing ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba as mayor of Johannesburg, once again, a post he held until he left the DA in 2019. The committee met on Sunday to discuss coalition agreements after last week’s local government elections resulted in several hung municipalities. According to two of its members, the party leaders were all in agreement that they would not enter into coalition with the ruling ANC.
“Nothing has changed since we last spoke. We have had commitments from the smaller parties that are already in coalition with us including the Freedom Front Plus, but there is still a lot of back-and-forth with ActionSA. What makes matters worse is that the two people leading these talks really do not like each other,” one party leader said.
The member said the DA was aiming at taking complete control of Tshwane in the coalition with ActionSA and handing over the reins to Mashaba in Johannesburg with stipulations that some mayoral committees must be held by DA members.
A move by the EFF this week to try and convince ActionSA to form an alliance in its coalition talks with the ANC and DA was thwarted by Moodey and the parties negotiating team, the M&G understands.
ActionSA has confirmed to the Mail & Guardian that the EFF did approach the party, its spokesperson Lerato Ngobeni said.
The EFF proposed that these talks would lead to Mashaba taking over in Johannesburg, while the EFF would have Tshwane and the DA or ANC would take over other municipalities with the support of the first two parties.
A member of the ANC national executive committee (NEC) said negotiations with the EFF were still in their infancy. While the ANC is not opposed to the demands that the EFF has made as they form part of its own conference resolutions, the party leader said the timelines were “impractical”.
The EFF is demanding that the ANC amend South Africa’s constitution to realise land expropriation without compensation in six months, create a state bank in a year, and nationalise the reserve bank in 12 months, among others.
“Those demands of theirs are not their conceptual ideas. Those are resolutions of (ANC) conference … EFF is playing clever to move first so tomorrow they get the credit. That’s what they do. They take our ideas and create an impression that it’s theirs … Some of those things are not practical to be done in six months. From 2018 to date we are still at public participation on land expropriation. Those have to do with policy and amendments of the Constitution. We must take them to public hearings. Some of these demands are just impractical,” the NEC member said.
The member added, however, that there was some feeling that there must be concessions made with the EFF in some municipalities: “It’s round one, we are still going to meet, others are still consulting their principals so it’s a back-and-forth that we are having.”
At a rally held for party volunteers on 8 November, Ramaphosa pointed to a possible rerun of elections should coalition talks collapse. The M&G previously reported that Ramaphosa along with his ally, ANC chair Gwede Mantashe, were reluctant to form a coalition with the EFF due to its inconsistency.
“We will not enter into coalitions at all costs. Our decisions will be principled, political and strategic. As we enter into coalitions, we will insist that coalition relationships are structured, that there are clear coalition agreements in place and that the contents of agreements are known to voters. We want coalitions that are stable, credible and have an agreed programme of work that delivers what communities need,” Ramaphosa said.
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