The unseemly squabble between the two biggest political parties in the country’s economic hub continues to prevent the formation of a provincial government a month after the elections.
With the far more complex negotiations over the composition of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s national cabinet having been successfully completed last week, we would have thought that talks about who will be in Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi’s provincial executive would be much smoother.
But they have turned into absurdity with the ANC and the DA proving themselves to be very good at hosting press conferences where they slag each other off instead of actually working to find a solution.
There was absolutely no need for Lesufi to announce that he would be naming his provincial cabinet on Monday evening when he knew for a fact that, by then, he had not reached an agreement with one of his key partners in the provincial government of unity — the DA.
His announcement backfired when Luthuli House cajoled him into withdrawing his plans, leaving him with egg on his face.
In a desperate attempt to save face, Lesufi’s ANC comrades in the form of party deputy chairperson Lebogang Maile and secretary TK Nciza promptly convened an ANC press conference at the same venue the cabinet was to be announced. A total farce!
If anything, they came across as power hungry and not sensitive to the realities of having caused their party to lose its absolute majority in the provincial legislature. They made bold statements they had no way of seeing through. For instance, Maile was adamant that Lesufi would be able to announce a new cabinet with or without the DA by Tuesday evening.
Well, Tuesday evening has come and gone and still no provincial cabinet.
Instead of the premier naming those who will be in his team, the public was subjected to yet another televised press conference, this time by the DA’s Helen Zille and party provincial leader Solly Msimanga.
Though far more conciliatory in tone than their counterparts were the previous night, Zille and Msimanga’s briefing revealed that the two parties were still far from finding each other and that trust was still a major stumbling block to the DA and the ANC forming a government in the province.
“Till now, the ANC has been prepared to offer the DA a maximum of three out of 10 cabinet seats, without telling us how many seats they intend to take for themselves, and how many they propose to offer to other parties. This approach was not conducive to building an atmosphere of trust. We wanted clarity on these issues.
“The ANC today conceded that they had intended to allocate three seats to the DA, and seven to themselves, out of a cabinet of 11 (including the ANC premier). This division falls far short of the requirements set out in Clause 16 of the Declaration of Intent, given that the DA comprises 45% and the ANC 55% of the GPU,” Zille told the press conference.
While we all recognise that, as political parties, the ANC and the DA are rivals and that each will use every opportunity to advantage itself over the other, the outcome of the May 29 elections means that they either start working with one another or one of them walks away from the talks and takes up the seats in the opposition benches.
The protracted disagreement over who gets how many positions is not only delaying the urgent work needed to be done to get the province back on track, but may have the long-term effect of portraying the province as politically unstable. Such a perception would have adverse economic consequences for Gauteng and its people, millions of which are unemployed.
If the provincial leaders of the two parties are unable to find each other in the next few hours, it would be a good idea for them to leave the negotiating in the hands of those who made the national deal a reality. If that too leads to an impasse, there should be no further delays, one of the parties would have to walk away from the talks and allow the other to form a coalition government with the parties it really wants. In ANC Gauteng’s case, it may very well be that those preferred partners are the EFF and the MK Party.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.