KwaZulu-Natal premier Thami Ntuli. Photo: Mbuso Kunene
The ANC, Democratic Alliance (DA), the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the National Freedom Party (NFP) have reached an agreement to form a government of provincial unity in KwaZulu-Natal.
The parties will all vote for IFP provincial chairperson Thami Ntuli as their premier candidate when members are sworn in on Friday, according to two well-placed sources with intimate knowledge of the coalition negotiations.
As a result, Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, which took 45% of the provincial vote on 29 May, will be kept out of the government despite being the largest party in the province.
It is not clear at this stage whether the MK party’s provincial contingent of 37 will attend the swearing-in ceremony in Pietermaritzburg for members of the provincial legislature (MPLs) — at which a premier, speaker and deputy speaker will be elected — or whether they and their colleagues elsewhere will boycott the event.
The involvement of the NFP, which holds a single seat in the 80-member KwaZulu-Natal legislature, gives the ANC-led coalition 41 seats and a simple majority in the province.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have only two seats in the legislature and even if they back an MK candidate for the various posts, this will not be enough to keep the ANC grouping out of power.
But there are concerns in the ANC and its coalition partners that not all of the party’s 14 MPLs will vote for Ntuli because they have divided loyalties and could possibly choose a candidate fielded by the Zuma party.
“We are all very worried about the potential sleepers in the ANC,” said one of the sources. “We don’t know how many of them are loyal to the party and how many are loyal to Zuma.”
A source told Mail & Guardian that the four parties had not found it difficult to reach an agreement because they all shared a commitment to the Constitution and to the principles the ANC outlined in its offering to the other parties.
“There was a lot of willingness among the parties to find each other. It was not all that difficult. They reached an agreement quite quickly,” the source said.
While Ntuli would be premier, talks would take place on Wednesday about who will be the speaker, deputy speaker, committee chairs and the provincial cabinet, which was expected to include all parties.
NFP president Ivan Barnes said a meeting would be held on Wednesday to conclude the negotiations among the parties.
The MK party has also approached the constitutional court to interdict the sitting of the National Assembly, which in turn had said the ceremony will go ahead.