COPE split hampers coalition talks

A fight between the DA and ANC over control of the Hassequa municipality in the Western Cape has been complicated by the factional battlein COPE.

A COPE councillor aligned to the Mbhazima Shilowa faction was fired on Friday by party president Mosioua Lekota's camp after he negotiated to work with the ANC, against Lekota's wishes.

COPE is a kingmaker in the Hassequa municipality, and Lekota's faction has decided to form coalitions with the DA.

Mbulelo Ncedana, a leader of COPE in the Western Cape who is in the Shilowa camp, said COPE general secretary Deidre Carter had written to the Hassequa municipality to inform it that councillor Johan Phillip had been expelled from the party.

But Ncedana said they were challenging Phillip's dismissal by taking up the matter with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

"The IEC said that it's only them who can declare a vacancy, not a municipal manager," he said.

Phillip's seat is crucial in deciding who will govern the town of Riversdale, which falls under Hassequa.

The 15-seat council is hung, as neither the ANC nor the DA won enough seats to control the municipality, with COPE and an independent candidate as kingmakers.

The Shilowa faction of COPE has publicly stated that it will not enter into coalition talks with the DA because it served the interests of the rich.

"Not a single councillor who is with us will ever work with the DA," said Ncedana.

The Lekota camp said it would favour the DA.

COPE spokesman Phillip Dexter, who is in the Lekota faction, said members of the Shilowa faction had no mandate to negotiate on behalf of COPE.

"If any of our members say that they are acting without a mandate from the party and concluding agreements, that person will be removed from council. They can't go and make agreements without the authority of the party," he said.

Dexter said coalition talks to co-govern in several municipalities in the Western Cape with the DA had been concluded.

"Most of them had been concluded, and (this) week we'll see the announcement of those local governments," he said.

The leader of the DA in the Western Cape, Theuns Botha, said his party was hoping to co-govern the municipalities of Bitou, Langeberg, Witzenberg and Matzikama with the co-operation of COPE.

He said the only issue outstanding was which positions would be given to candidates of the two parties.

Fezile Calana, provincial treasurer of the ANC in the Western Cape, said his party had no selective approach to coalition talks.

"That is why we have signed agreement in a number of municipalities with various parties, including the PAC, Icosa and the NPP," he said, in reference to coalition agreements the party had sealed to run the municipalities of Oudtshoorn, Cape Agulhas and Kannaland.

In KwaZulu-Natal, Zanele Magwaza-Msibi's fledgling National Freedom Party is the kingmaker in the majority of the province's 19 hung municipalities in which the IFP and ANC are competing for control.

On Friday, Magwaza-Msibi reiterated that she would not discuss coalition with the IFP until it publicly withdraws its statement that her party was an ANC initiative aimed at destroying Mangosuthu Buthelezi's organisation.

She said she was discussing co-governance with the ANC, but declined to elaborate.

Meanwhile, James Nxumalo, deputy chairman of the SACP in KwaZulu-Natal, has been endorsed by the ANC's provincial executive committee as eThekwini's mayor.