Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi. (Oupa Nkosi)
After Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi failed to announce his cabinet at least three times last week, the ANC in the province is confident he will finally confirm who will serve in the new government of provincial unity within the next 48 hours.
Lesufi was forced to postpone cabinet announcements last Tuesday and Friday because of a lack of consensus with the ANC’s coalition partners and, on Sunday, a notice that he would name his cabinet was withdrawn within less than an hour.
Sources with intimate knowledge of the negotiations said Lesufi’s attempts to make the announcements were all premature as there was no deal in place with the other parties the ANC needed to govern Gauteng.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) accused the ANC of not consulting with it before coming out in public to say Lefusi would unveil his cabinet on Sunday. At the weekend, the DA threatened to pull out of the coalition agreement with the ANC over a deadlock on MEC positions, with the ANC refusing to accede to some of its demands.
Insiders said Lesufi was supposed to consult DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga before inviting other parties to the government, but did not do so.
In a WhatsApp voice note to the DA caucus in the province, Msimanga said the ANC had refused to meet the party’s demands that it be constituted on a proportional representation basis by the parties involved in the provincial unity government.
According to the DA, a proportional split in the cabinet would mean that the ANC and DA would each receive roughly five of the 13 positions — premier, speaker, deputy speaker and 10 MECs. It is not clear how the other parties in the GNU will be accommodated, if this formulation is used.
Gauteng remains the only province without a cabinet after the 29 May national and provincial elections, which left it with a hung legislature.
The ANC achieved 36.49% of the votes, a significant decrease from the 53.20% it won in Gauteng in 2019. The DA remained the biggest opposition party with 26.78% of the vote, receiving 22 seats in the legislature.
Lesufi was reelected premier with the help of the ANC’s government of national unity partners, the DA and the Inkatha Freedom Party.
Gauteng ANC provincial spokesperson Lesego Makhubela told the Mail & Guardian on Monday that Lesufi would announce his cabinet within 48 hours and it would be in place by Wednesday.
Makhubela said negotiations with the other parties that have since joined the government of national unity were in the final stages, adding that the negotiations had prevented Lesufi from announcing his cabinet on Sunday.
“Final details of the agreements are being finalised and, once they have been completed, the premier will announce his cabinet within the next 48 hours,” he said.
Among the most contentious issues is that both the ANC and the DA in Gauteng want to retain the position of MEC for finance, as this would allow them to have control of spending in the province.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the DA succeeded in getting the positions of finance public works MEC, both of which are seen as critical in running the government.
A source in the Gauteng ANC provincial executive committee told the M&G last week that the finance MEC position was a critical position, especially on governance issues, adding that the ANC was “very firm” on the issue of governance.
“We can’t give it to anyone if governance was going to be affected in terms of corruption and inability to have maximum control and having the finances collapsing. If you have the best MEC with the finances, who is not strong in that regard, then you are going to have a problem,” they said.
Makhubela dispelled allegations that national dynamics between the DA and the ANC had delayed the announcement of the new cabinet.
Msimanga told the M&G on Monday that the DA was never consulted about Lesufi’s announcement, saying as far as he knew, internal discussions were still underway.
“He [Lesufi] said he needed to call it off because negotiators asked for more time but the question is, wouldn’t he have got a lead from their negotiators to say it’s good to go ahead before even putting a statement out to say you are making an announcement?” Msimanga said.
He confirmed that negotiations on the proportion of cabinet seats were ongoing but would not be drawn into saying how many — and which — positions the DA wanted.
He added that the parties were still putting mechanisms in place which would allow them to resolve disputes in future, adding that they were negotiating as fast as possible to find a solution to how the government would work.
“Nobody has absolute authority here because none of us won power. We need to answer the question of how power-sharing is going to be done,” Msimanga said.
“These are things we have experienced in municipalities, where you rush in the issues of positions and then afterward when you have disputes, there’s no mechanism to deal with them. If we are not ironing out this thing, you’ll find no longevity and fights.”
He said it “should not take long” for the parties to reach agreement as the issues the DA had raised had been agreed on in principle, although there were other “minor” ones that still needed to be ironed out.