EFF leader Julius Malema. (Photo by Gallo Images/Sharon Seretlo)
Opposition-led coalition governments in the Gauteng metros and in KwaZulu-Natal face collapse, with the Economic Freedom Fighters threatening to pull the plug on their current partners for denying the party a key post in the City of Johannesburg metro.
The EFF is threatening to withdraw from coalitions with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Democratic Alliance in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in municipalities that both parties govern as a result of — in part at least —the votes of EFF councillors.
This comes after both parties failed to accede to the EFF’s demand that they vote with the Red Berets to give them the chair of Johannesburg’s municipal public accounts committee (MPAC), which had been allocated to the IFP by the DA-led coalition.
The DA-led coalitions in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni took control of the cities after the EFF and ActionSA, along with other smaller parties, voted — surprisingly — for DA candidates for mayor and other key posts, despite the earlier refusal of the country’s main opposition to enter into deals with them.
The outmanoeuvring of the DA forced the creation of unstable, opposition-led coalitions in Gauteng headed by the party, which are showing signs of stress well ahead of their having even started key processes such as budgeting.
In short, ANC may have emerged battered from last November’s local government elections by losing control of five hung metro councils to the DA, but the official national opposition faces five years of governing them with a gun held to its head by the EFF and ActionSA — or the failure of the councils.
In KwaZulu-Natal the IFP gained control of a number of key rural municipalities including Nongoma, Dannhauser and Mhlatuze, with the support of the EFF’s councillors, while in eThekwini the ANC narrowly avoided losing the municipality to a coalition led by the three parties.
On Tuesday, EFF leader Julius Malema told a media briefing that the Gauteng metros were likely to collapse over the “arrogance” of the DA in denying the EFF key committee chairs after it had voted for its mayoral candidates.
A special council meeting held in Johannesburg last week to elect the chairpersons of committees collapsed after the EFF, ANC and other parties walked out following a dispute over voting procedures. This was the second meeting of the new council that had to be abandoned caused by walkouts over voting.
The ANC and others wanted the voting conducted by secret ballot, but speaker Vasco da Gama, of the DA, ruled otherwise, sparking the walkout and ending the meeting.
ActionSA’s John Moodey, DA leader John Steenhuisen and Cope’s Connie Makhubela at a coalition briefing. (Photo by Gallo Images/Luba Lesolle)
The council was placed under administration in 2020 after the DA/EFF coalition, which took over the city in 2016, collapsed. The Gauteng member of the executive council (MEC) for cooperative governance, Lebogang Maile, has already expressed concerns that the walkouts could lead to a failure of the council should the parties not reach an agreement.
Malema said the EFF would not budge over its demands.
“We want to have our space. We want to lead. People think they can just leave us out like that as if we are not role players. The DA is going to collapse these metros … you cannot insult people to this extent, especially if you know what power they hold,” he said.
Should the DA not respond positively in Johannesburg, it would also suffer in Ekurhuleni.
“In Ekurhuleni, if the DA keeps on insulting the EFF and the EFF decides to go a different way, the power will leave the DA in less than no time,” Malema said.
But he added that the “EFF’s doors are still open” to the DA in the Gauteng metros.
“Let the DA come to the party,” Malema said. “We want to unseat the ANC at all costs, but we can’t impose ourselves on the DA and we can’t keep on voting for the DA when they keep on insulting us.”
Malema issued the IFP with a similar ultimatum.
“We gave the IFP a lot of municipalities. We never asked for mayors — what they gave, we said, that’s okay. We even gave them Nongoma which they wanted so dearly.
“We said we gave you so many municipalities. We are asking for a simple thing, let the EFF chair MPAC in Johannesburg. We can’t do that without your support. We have to support each other.”
The EFF leader warned that should the IFP fail to vote with his party on the MPAC issue, there would be a backlash.
“When we take, we are going to start with Nongoma. They love that Nongoma. We must go to Nongoma and build a very strong EFF there because they want it,” Malema said. “They will have to decide if they want to vote with us or against us, but they must vote for the EFF because they know how important the EFF is to them.
“This is not a threat, it is a commitment,” he added.
Malema said that if the IFP regional leadership in Gauteng was defying the party’s national leadership, the IFP needed to “fire those people”.
The EFF could still give the IFP “a lot” in KwaZulu-Natal, where it planned to reach out to the so-called radical economic transformation (RET) faction in the ANC and exploit the divisions in the ruling party at local government level.
“Part of what we are going to do in KwaZulu-Natal is to talk to the RET forces to vote with us. There are a lot of RET forces. That thing of voting is secret. We are going to talk to RET forces to vote with us to upset the situation,” Malema said.
Turning to ActionSA, Malema said that the actions of the party’s former eThekwini mayoral candidate, Makhosi Khoza, had cost the DA/EFF coalition the mayoral seat because she had refused to vote for the DA candidate, Nicole Graham.
The ANC’s candidate for eThekwini mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, won the vote by a tiny margin.
Khoza has since left ActionSA.
“That’s why we lost eThekwini. It didn’t come to a shock to me that we lost eThekwini because people like Makhosi Khoza were not well behaved,” Malema said.
The IFP Gauteng chairperson, Alco Ngobese, said his party had been allocated the Johannesburg MPAC chair by the coalition consisting of the DA, ActionSA, the African Christian Democratic Party, the Congress of the People and the Freedom Front Plus — of which the EFF was not part.
IFP leaders discuss hung municipalities. (Photo by Gallo Images/Darren Stewart)
“You won’t want to go out and vote for somebody else who is not part of the coalition. It doesn’t make sense at all,” Ngobese said, adding that the IFP was willing to allow the EFF to take the position.
“As the IFP we are here to serve the people. If that [the MPAC chair] would make the EFF happy, then we are willing to let that one go. If that is what is holding back the council … we are prepared to let MPAC go.”
Ngobese said the IFP’s national executive had agreed and would communicate with the EFF national leadership. At the same time, he would brief the IFP’s Johannesburg coalition partners on its decision.
It was not clear how the IFP decision will be received by its coalition partners and the EFF and whether the proposal will break the current impasse in Johannesburg.
DA federal chairperson Helen Zille declined to comment.
[/membership]