The ANC is set to approach the South African Communist Party (SACP) to discuss the possibility of the latter donating its PR seats in various councils.
Should the SACP agree, this would mean the ANC could bring at least one of its mayoral candidates in the City of Johannesburg into council, as none of them secured seats through the PR system.
Speaking to the Mail & Guardian this week, a senior Gauteng Provincial Task Team (PTT) member said convenor Panyaza Lesufi had informed members about a possible approach to the SACP and other political parties to ask them to give their PR seats to the ANC.
The ANC did not win any PR seats in Johannesburg, meaning that all its mayoral candidates in the city failed to secure seats in council.
These include Dada Morero, Loyiso Masuku and Frank Chikane.
The PTT member said they were unsure whether this would work, considering the strained relationship between the SACP and the ANC.
‘‘I'm not sure how this is going to work, but I don't think the SACP would allow their candidate not to go to council and then field them with an ANC person," the source said.
Another ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) member said they were considering engaging the SACP to ask the party to give the ANC PR seats in some of the councils in Gauteng.
The NEC member said the conversations were still informal, but the SACP had already approached the ANC to discuss coalitions.
SACP acting spokesperson Mhlekwa Nxumalo said the trade off with councillors would not form part of their negotiations.
Nxumalo said the councillors elected to represent the party in councils had been chosen by communities, civic organisations and traditional leaders. He said the council seats belonged to those formations.
‘‘We are not going to enter any negotiations regarding those changes.
‘‘We have not yet begun formal engagement. We had our own meeting yesterday discussing that approach, and we were able to set up certain minimum standards that will guide our negotiations."
He said one of the conditions was that the ANC should not work with the DA and the Freedom Front Plus if it wanted the SACP's support. He added that if these conditions were breached, the party would not hesitate to withdraw its support should it enter into a coalition with the ANC.
On Thursday, at the Birchwood Hotel in Ekurhuleni, the ANC held an NEC meeting to discuss the direction the party should take in approaching coalition negotiations.
The parties of the left, which include the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the SACP and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), held their own meeting, which discussed, among other things, coalition arrangements.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the NEC meeting, ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu said the party had not adopted any position on which parties it should work with to form coalitions.
Bhengu said the party would assess all the risks associated with coalition arrangements. She added that in municipalities where the ANC had won an outright majority, the party was already putting systems in place to ensure its councillor nominees began implementing the commitments contained in its manifesto.
This week, following reports that ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa was considering resigning from his position, former president Thabo Mbeki said in a podcast that Ramaphosa would be making the correct decision, arguing that leaders normally resign when their parties experience major disasters, as the ANC had.
The current ANC leadership pre-sided over the worst election performance in the party's history.
In 2024, the party lost its outright majority for the first time since 1994, while in the recent local government elections, it received 32.5%, down from 47.5%.
These results saw the party lose its majorities in all Gauteng metros.
‘‘The leadership takes responsibility. We are at fault. [Fikile] Mbalula called it a catastrophe. How do you continue to lead when you are responsible for a catastrophe?
‘‘I thought what was reported, if correct, [is] that President Ramaphosa's position is correct and maybe the leadership should take the same position."
Bhengu said Mbeki had every opportunity to engage with the ANC leadership and that the party strongly supported this position. She added that she had no knowledge of whether Mbeki had been engaged about his concerns.
Some in the ANC believe that working with the DA in hung municipalities would be catastrophic for the party. They argue that working with parties on the left would be more viable because they share similar constituencies and some policy positions.
Bhengu said there had been conversations about coalitions with various parties, but none had taken place at a formal level.
She said the ANC had not approached any party, but had been approached by several parties.
This week, ANC Youth League president Collen Malatji told the M&G that if the entire ANC leadership resigned, it would be tantamount to closing down the party and would worsen the situation in which it found itself.
Malatji said it was imperative that the ANC work with the SACP, adding that the Youth League's position was that the DA was a ‘‘no-no".
‘‘We don't want to work with the DA because we have a view that they don't agree with the things that we stand for. We also can't work with the Freedom Front Plus because they are a racist organisation."
He said all NEC members should take responsibility for the ANC's decline, not just the top seven, as they had all presided over the elections.
He said taking responsibility did not mean they had to kill themselves, but rather that they had to be willing to be guided on how best to move the country forward.
‘‘The NEC is the highest decisionmaking body of the ANC between conferences. There's no structure that can appoint a structure above it. When we say they must be disbanded, it means you are saying the ANC must close."
Some in the ANC believe that ActionSA is merely playing hardball with the DA but will eventually work with the party in Gauteng municipalities because they are funded by the same people.
Speaking to the M&G, ActionSA president Herman Mashaba said his party had already concluded a working agreement with the Patriotic Alliance and the ANC in Laingsburg Municipality in the Western Cape.
Mashaba said ActionSA would take over the mayoralty in that municipality and that the parties were busy finalising the agreement.
‘‘It was going to be easy to work with the DA because we would have governed together, but they opted to ignore us."
He said this demonstrated the DA's attitude and that the party had done the same thing in 2021 during the formation of coalition governments.
He said negotiations were still ongoing in Gauteng, but ActionSA had not met with the DA in the province.