BRYAN PEARSON, Cape Town | Wednesday 9.00pm.
THREE opposition parties in the Western Cape agreed Wednesday to form a coalition and said the ANC — which won the provincial election last week — could join them or be excluded from the provincial government.
However, the New National Party, Democratic Party and the African Christian Democratic Party are offering the African National Congress only one seat in the provincial cabinet if it joins the partnership.
ANC spokesman Cameron Dugmore said: “We had made it very clear that the offer of one cabinet seat in a cabinet of 13 is actually an insult to the ANC and the voters of the Western Cape.”
He said the party was considering staying out of government and becoming a strong opposition.
The ANC’s longstanding ally, the powerful trade union federation Cosatu, warned this week of mass labour action if the party was excluded from government in the Western Cape.
Together the coalition partners have 23 seats in the provincial legislature, over-riding the 18 seats won by the ANC on June 2.
The ANC came in just one seat ahead of the NNP, the former apartheid power which held on only to the Western Cape after the first all-race elections of 1994.
Last Wednesday, the ruling ANC took nearly two-thirds of the national ballot, with outright majorities in seven provinces.
Besides its narrow win in the Western Cape, it lost the KwaZulu-Natal province to the Inkatha Freedom Party. The parties are planning talks about a coalition in the province.
Political commentator Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, a former liberal politician, said the coalition in the Western Cape was “very depressing because it reaffirms old political patterns and … polarisation between the different racial groups.” — AFP