ANC says it's sad as DA 'humiliates' and withdraws Gauteng deputy speaker

The ANC has expressed its disappointment in the DA's decision to have the deputy speaker in the Gauteng legislature, Refiloe Nt'sekhe, resign just two weeks into the job.

Gauteng ANC spokesperson Lesego Makhubela said the DA continued to humiliate Nt'sekhe, who ahead of the 2021 local government elections was its Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate but made way for Tania Campbell after the polls.

“We feel disheartened about the ill-treatment of Honourable [Nt'sekhe] and the continued humiliation and embarrassment she continues to suffer at hands of her party,” said Makhubela.

“In 2021 when her face was on DA posters and billboards and she was announced as their mayoral candidate for Ekurhuleni, they realised they would make it through a coalition with the EFF she was quickly dropped in favour of a white woman.”

Nt'sekhe refused to comment, referring TimesLIVE Premium to DA provincial leader Solly Msimanga, who was not available for comment.

According to Makhubela, the ANC in Gauteng was ready to work with Nt'sekhe as deputy speaker despite the collapsed talks with the DA.

“As the ANC, we never asked her to resign,” he said, adding the ANC-led GPU was committed to working with her while keeping an open door for the DA to help build a credible government of provincial unity.

Nt'sekhe was elected deputy speaker as part of the initial agreement between the ANC and the DA that also saw Panyaza Lesufi elected unopposed as premier two weeks ago.

Talks between the parties soured due to differences on the composition of Lesufi's government. This led to Lesufi excluding the DA from his cabinet.

Lesufi announced his provincial cabinet on Wednesday evening, which saw the ANC get seven MECs while its partners in the Patriotic Alliance, Rise Mzansi and the IFP were each given a portfolio.

Lesufi's executive appointment came just hours after the DA decided it would return to the opposition benches in the province. The party said this would not affect the agreements at national level and in KwaZulu-Natal, where both parties had come to agreements for a government after protracted negotiations. 

The DA said it would not “merely be co-opted” into ANC's government of provincial unity.

The party believed the ANC was behaving as if it had won the election instead of sitting at the negotiating table as equal partners.

The ANC had offered three MEC positions to the DA, keeping seven to itself. TimesLIVE Premium understands the DA had demanded its share of departments include finance & economic development, health, education and co-operative governance & traditional affairs.

“It is impossible for the DA to be co-opted into government as we are meant to be power-sharing partners,” said Msimanga on Wednesday.

On Thursday morning, Msimanga told several broadcasters that the DA had taken a decision that to totally pull out of the government of provincial unity, Nt'sekhe would have to resign as the deputy speaker.

She would take up a position in the shadow cabinet that the DA would form, he said.

It is unclear how Lesufi plans to run his minority government having left out three of the four biggest parties in the legislature.

Of the 80 seats in the Gauteng provincial legislature, parties that are part of Lesufi's executive make up only 32, meaning the combined opposition has 48 seats.

It is, however, expected that to protect its arrangements in municipalities, the EFF — which has 11 seats — would not support any motion that would seek to remove Lesufi and his government.

It is also unlikely that the MK Party would support any such motion should the DA table a motion of no confidence against Lesufi.