Political hypocrisy unveiled in Tshwane and Joburg coalitions

It has only been about 100 days since the government of national unity has been in office and it already seems like that momentous 29 May general election happened a decade ago.

Such is the turnover of the South African news cycle; 10 days do indeed seem like a decade. Which is why ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba thinks he can make a complete turnaround and decide to work with the people he had sworn he would never work with, the ANC.

Mashaba had used every possible negative phrase to describe the ANC, including “the ANC is a criminal enterprise, I’ll never work with the devil”.

On Thursday, Mashaba’s ActionSA helped the “devil’s criminal enterprise” remove the DA’s Cilliers Brink from Tshwane’s mayoral office. It would be unfair to single out Mashaba as the worst hypocrite when it is the most unlikely coalition leading the country right now.

All the shenanigans in the Johannesburg and Tshwane metros are indicating is that voters must not look for principles and values from unprincipled politicians.

It will also help politicians not to take voters for fools when they want to justify their lack of principles.

ALSO READ: Msimanga says DA will go back to the ANC cap in hand about Brink

It is important to remember that Mashaba started out in the DA. He was a DA mayor of the City of Joburg and has found it quite hard to forgive the DA for what he saw as a betrayal when they elected Helen Zille as their chair of the Federal Council.

The betrayal continued when he found himself somehow working with the DA to oust the ANC but the same DA went behind his back to clinch a deal with the ANC to form the GNU.

Where Mashaba and the ANC take voters for fools is when they claim that it is the DA’s lack of delivery that has made them band together in Tshwane.

Evidence has been advanced to show that Tshwane is the worst-performing of the three Gauteng metros behind Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, with emphasis being put by the ANC on lack of delivery in the townships.

Although they have attempted to show on paper that Brink has been running a metro on the brink of financial disaster, it would be very naïve of any voter to think that just a snapshot of the finances is enough to show how terrible a mayor Brink was.

It is should be more the outlook, based on what measures have been put in place for revenue collection, that carries more weight.

ALSO READ: Ousting of Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink raises questions

When the 2026 local government elections come around, the ANC and ActionSA better hope that their union has indeed outperformed the DA because local government is very unforgiving.

People vote not based on who campaigns better but more on what they see happening on their street: do streetlights go on at night? Is refuse collected on time every week? Are the potholes repaired on their streets?

It will not be Mashaba’s anger towards Zille that carries the DA.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula needs to take his head out of the sand with regards to the behaviour of the ANC Gauteng since the formation of the GNU. Premier Panyaza Lesufi and company did not follow the lead of the mother body in constituting the provincial government.

They have now twice refused to work with the DA at metro level. While the GNU, with the DA, might be working for now nationally, Mbalula and the ANC need to prepare themselves for the possibility that they might have to take their lead from the bottom up in the future.