DA smells Gauteng metros ‘coup’ while EFF begins talks with ANC

Coalitions in economic hub hang by a thread as Tshwane council votes in motion of no confidence in mayor on Thursday

24 August 2022 - 16:17
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In better days, the DA and several smaller parties, ACDP, AIC, AIM, FF+, PAC and UDM, signed a coalition agreement when they all held onto the hope that they would oust the ruling party. File photo.
In better days, the DA and several smaller parties, ACDP, AIC, AIM, FF+, PAC and UDM, signed a coalition agreement when they all held onto the hope that they would oust the ruling party. File photo.
Image: Eugene Coetzee

The DA believes the ANC is on an offensive to stage a coup in all three Gauteng metros that are now under the control of multiparty coalitions.

This while the EFF has on the other side confirmed it has started talks with the two new ANC provincial leadership collectives in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

According to DA leader John Steenhuisen, there was a co-ordinated offensive by the ANC to collapse the multiparty governments in the metropoles of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.

But the EFF this week also accused the DA of “disregarding the EFF” and warned there will be consequences for this as it begins talks with the Panyaza Lesufi-led ANC Gauteng and Sboniso Duma-marshalled ANC KZN.

Given its track record of greed, corruption and extraction, the ANC was not going to let go without a dirty fight. And that fight is what we are seeing in the Gauteng metros today
John Steenhuisen, DA leader

The EFF forms part of all three DA-led multiparty coalition governments in Gauteng metros.

Briefing the media on Wednesday, Steenhuisen expressed his belief that the ANC, in its alleged plot to regain power “through the backdoor”, is working with the PAC and AIC.

“Multiparty coalitions would not be easy.  Given its track record of greed, corruption and extraction, the ANC was not going to go without a dirty fight,” said Steenhuisen.

“And that fight is what we are seeing in the Gauteng metros today. There is a co-ordinated attack on the coalition governments of all three Gauteng metros, orchestrated by the ANC and supported by its small proxy parties.

“The mayors of these metros, who all happen to be DA mayors, are being targeted simultaneously to destabilise these governments and let the ANC in via the backdoor.

“In Tshwane the ANC has submitted a motion of no confidence in mayor Randall Williams [which council entertains on Thursday] while in Johannesburg its allies, the PAC and the AIC, have done the same to mayor Mpho Phalatse and we now understand that similar plans are afoot against mayor Tania Campbell in Ekurhuleni.”

EFF leader Julius Malema has slammed the DA, accusing it of undermining the red berets. He further confirmed the newly elected leadership of the ANC in Gauteng and KZN had begun talks with the red berets on a possible partnership.

“We are not kitchen girls and garden boys of Helen Zille that they think they can insult us and say all manner of things about us and think they will still get our vote because we want to appear good in front of South Africans,” Malema said. 

“The DA has no regard for the EFF, and the DA strategy everywhere is that the EFF must be stopped. We will not be part of any nonsense of voting for DA.

“At municipalities where we see the DA is desperate and wants our vote to emerge, we are going to show them flames. We are not Helen Zille puppets here.”

Steenhuisen said the DA would do all in its power to ensure the ANC’s mission to collapse coalition governments did not succeed.

In his view, the ANC was desperate to regain the metros because of the financial benefits it drew from controlling them in the past. It was no accident that after losing the big cities, he said, the ANC struggled financially to the point that it had become the norm at Luthuli House not to pay staff on time.

“This is the work of the ANC that finds itself cut off from its patronage network in these Gauteng metros. As a result it now cannot fund its own operations or pay its own staff, not to mention the blow that this has dealt the lavish lifestyles many of its leaders have become accustomed to,” he said.

“The ANC desperately needs to get its hands back into that cash register and it will stop at nothing in its efforts to do so.”

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