ActionSA chairperson Michael Beaumont said the charter was aimed at keeping the ANC out. Photo: X/@ME_Beaumont
Comments by Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen that the party is open to co-governing with the ANC as a last resort have placed strain on the opposition Multi-Party Charter for South Africa.
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) president Velenkosini Hlabisa has also expressed an openness to the party serving in a government of national unity (GNU) after 29 May should the situation arise.
Some of the 11 parties involved in the charter — aimed at unseating the ANC — want the matter tabled at the next meeting of its leaders because they believe Steenhuisen’s comments in an interview with the Mail & Guardian will “confuse” voters and undermine their agreement.
The parties signed the charter last August, which includes a clause that none of th,em will be allowed to enter into any co-governance agreement with the ANC after months of talks to bring them together into the so-called moonshot coalition.
African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) deputy president Wayne Thring said it was “concerned” about the comments because they contradicted the aims of the charter, which included removing the ANC from office.
“One of the goals of the charter is to ensure that we don’t have the ANC in government and that we unseat the ANC. If you have the leader of the DA saying that a coalition with the ANC is not off the table, it is certainly going to muddy the waters,” Thring said.
He said the ACDP expected that the matter would receive some “robust” attention at the next meeting of the charter leaders, which was likely to be held next Thursday.
“The matter is on the agenda and it certainly needs to be discussed. If there is an intended goal to unseat the ANC and replace them with a potential coalition — which is what the charter is all about — how can we have a particular partner in that framework going in another direction?” he said.
ActionSA has also asked that the matter be discussed at the charter leaders’ forum.
In a letter to ActionSA structures on Monday, national chairperson Michael Beaumont said concerns had been raised in its ranks over the statements by parties involved in the charter that they were considering co-governance arrangements with the ANC.
“ActionSA has noted these utterances and has raised an official objection within the process of the Multi-Party Charter, given that section 7 (1) (2) of our signed charter agreement expressly prohibits any party to entertain any working arrangement or governing arrangements with the ANC.”
Beaumont said the objection was a reminder to the other parties in the charter that ActionSA had only agreed to participate after the clause was inserted in the agreement signed last year.
This was done to “assure South Africans that no vote for one of our parties could ever be used to keep the ANC in government”, Beaumont said.
It would also “confuse” South Africans for the parties to campaign under a “banner of change” only then to “suggest an openness to keep the very same ANC in power from which they said we needed change”.
Beaumont said ActionSA “suffers from no confusion on this matter” and had “assured the South African people that a vote for ActionSA will never be used to keep the ANC in power”.
He said ActionSA believed South Africa could not be rebuilt in conjunction with the ANC and had reminded them of this. He urged party activists to emphasise this agreement when dealing with concerns raised by the public during canvassing and to remind voters that “we will never co-govern with the ANC.”