Service delivery possibly affected by party ‘agreements’
JOBURG – The future of local government in the City of Johannesburg is in the balance as political parties lay out their plans for coalitions.
After various political parties on 17 August announced the outcome of the coalition talks pending the “historical” 2016 municipal elections, the picture of a new government in the City of Johannesburg is now becoming more clear.
The EFF on 17 August, two weeks after voters cast their votes, announced that it will not form coalitions with any party but will vote with the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the City of Johannesburg, and other metros in South Africa.
Malema made the announcement in Alexandra where he emphasised the party is not “in bed” with any of the parties and will instead be an opposition party after the 2016 municipal elections. Malema said the party had to decide between “two devils, and we had to choose the better one”. He also said that the EFF is not “after any positions”, and will only step into mayoral or speaker positions in council if they are elected by a majority vote.
“We will vote with them if they meet conditions that are between us,” the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema said.
At the DA’s media briefing in Sandton later on the same day, it appeared that the condition the EFF mentioned was the DA’s mayoral candidate in the City, Herman Mashaba.
But Maimane said the party was clear that “the people voted for Herman Mashaba and he stands as our mayoral candidate”.
Professor Peter Alexander, South African Research chairperson in Social Change and director at the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), said the EFF’s announcement means that it is keeping open the option of voting against the DA. He said that it might be likely when it comes to budget decisions “because of the parties’ different ideologies”.
Alexander also believes that it is highly likely that service delivery in the City will be affected by the changing local government landscape.
“Both the DA and the EFF want to eliminate corruption. There will be an eagle eye on things like tender processes and nepotism. Both found in research to be factors in protests,” he said.
Maimane, however, later on 17 August announced that the DA, Congress of the People (Cope), United Democratic Movement (UDM), African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), Vryheidsfront Plus (VF Plus) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has “entered into an agreement”.
The DA said it would work with Cope, UDM, ACDP and the VF Plus while helping the IFP to become governing parties in KwaZulu-Natal municipalities.
Narend Singh, chairperson of the IFP’s National Campaign Committee, said the party is not forming any coalitions even though it will work in cooperation with the DA and EFF in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
“But our councillors will work together at local level, in various municipalities, to ensure that the will of the electorate is respected,” Singh said.
With the support of Cope, UDM, ACDP, IFP and the VF Plus and the DA, a total of 108 seats are part of a coalition in the City. If the EFF and IFP supports the DA in the City, the support will grow to 143 seats.
A political party needs 50 percent plus one seat in council, that is 136 seats in the City, to be able to elect an executive mayor and a speaker.
Alexander added that the outcome of this elections is a prelude to national elections “which will be very interesting”.
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