THE Democratic Alliance and the Independent Democrats are due to make an announcement "soon" on how they will co-operate during next year's local government elections.
Both parties said yesterday they had received mandates from their members to start negotiations with each other and other opposition parties.
ID boss Patricia de Lille and her DA counterpart, Helen Zille, have been at the forefront of the move to get opposition parties to work closely together in a bid to form a viable coalition party and take on the ANC.
Speaking after delivering a speech at the DA federal congress in Cape Town yesterday, De Lille said: "The next step is to look at how to work together during local government elections next year.
"The 'how' part will now start. As they say, the devil is in the detail. For instance, we could agree on a criteria to choose a certain councillor for a specific area."
De Lille said the parties would have finalised the agreement by September 20.
United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa was also part of talks to realign opposition politics in South Africa, said De Lille. She hoped COPE would also come on board once it had sorted its internal squabbles.
Earlier De Lille told delegates that opposition parties should work together to create a "force that can have a realistic opportunity of taking over national government in the near future".
"Instead of stroking our own egos, we have a vision of a strong new entity - one that is greater than the sum of our individual parties. This is not about simply adding up our current voter percentages. It is about building a political force that can hold the government accountable where it counts: at the ballot box."
Zille said she was excited about the prospects of working with De Lille and others. "Patricia and I will have a meeting this week," she said.
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