Coalition parties press on with coalition talks without DA 

26 July 2022

Coalition parties (ActionSA, Independent Alliance and the African Independent Congress) in the KwaDukuza Municipality have convened this briefing today to reiterate our collective commitment to building a viable opposition coalition to unseat the ANC in KwaDukuza. I believe we are joined in spirit by the IFP, ACDP and ATM all of whom could not be with us on short notice due to legislature commitments.

It is for the residents of KwaDukuza that the opposition parties represented here today will press on with coalition talks in the interests of bringing better services to the people of this municipality.  

We have a real opportunity to remove the ANC and bring change to KwaDukuza and to this end all parties need to pull together and put the priorities of residents first, and put the personal feelings we have for each other aside. 

We note the DA’s statement yesterday which is a deeply unfortunate misrepresentation of the facts in this regard. 

The DA’s statement has accused ActionSA of promoting cadre deployment and interference. This simply isn’t true because: 

· ActionSA required the multi-party coalition to be consulted on the appointment of appoint senior managers in crucial positions (eg. Head: Electricity). These appointments are made in Council by Councillors and are strategic to the change that must be delivered by a coalition government. Without the support of a majority in Council, these appointments cannot be made. This necessitates meaningful consultation to reach consensus. Service delivery performance can only start to improve with the right skills and experience at the top of each department. This is not cadre deployment this is good governance.

We requested that the annual budgeting process receive input from the new multi-party governing coalition, in accordance with the provisions of the Municipal Systems Act and supporting legislation. The budget process decides how hundreds of millions of Rands are spent and is inherently a political process that must reflect the political direction arising from elections. Without input from the new coalition, wasteful expenditure – like the millions spent on VIP Protection, conferences, travel and catering – cannot be redirected to priorities like infrastructure and reliable services. The DA bizarrely characterised this as state capture, but it is how change is delivered when the ANC is removed.

The fact is that it is the DA adjourned our last meeting of the multiparty coalition yesterday at 10 am, committing to further talks and progress but, just 5mins later, issued a statement attacking ActionSA. This is exactly the sort of petty politics that frustrates voters; at a time when voters are looking to coalitions to pull together, the DA is issuing press statements attacking a member of their ongoing coalition talks to the detriment of the people of KwaDukuza. 

The DA has demonstrated a deliberate tactic of frustrating coalition talks in KwaDukuza in a manner that is consistent with the tactics they previously employed in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni. This will be corroborated by other political parties present in this press conference.

Members of the media, these are the facts: 

- The DA called the coalition talks but their coalition has only 26 members when 30 are required for a majority; 

- They required the inclusion of a clause in the agreement that prohibits any coalition partner from engaging to obtain the further 4 votes that are required for a majority to conduct the business of residents in KwaDukuza and bring good governance to the municipality; 

- Such a proposal will create instability in Council because every decision, and the consequent service delivery that follows, will effectively become a game of Russian roulette.

ActionSA can only reasonably conclude that the DA did not want a coalition to be achieved in KwaDukuza, but rather wanted the pretense of setting up a coalition. It was the DA that requested the first Motion of No Confidence to be delayed; it was the DA that allowed weeks to go by without progress; and it was the DA who collapsed talks yesterday, the consequence of which is the possibility of continued ANC governance.

The parties present here today have been overwhelmed by residents, business owners, community organisations and even municipal officials who want to see this group remove the ANC and replace it with a coalition government. The DA’s collapse of talks yesterday flies directly in the face of what the people of this municipality voted for, and importantly, what they have expressed in the last few weeks.

The opportunity to replace the ANC with an opposition-led coalition government remains before us and this group of political parties will not be deterred. On Thursday ActionSA will table our Motions of No Confidence to effectively remove the ANC from KwaDukuza. We believe that every party stands ready to support this motion except the ANC and, perhaps the DA.

This collective of parties invited the DA to have the courage to avoid this kind of pettiness and support this motion. The future of South African politics will be defined by those who want to remove the ANC and deliver change and those who, either by their actions or inactions, keep the ANC in power. The DA must decide in which group they want to be included.

ActionSA, alongside other parties, remain committed to removing the ANC and installing this coalition because it is what the residents of KwaDukuza deserve. I encourage the DA to similarly prioritise the needs of KwaDukuza residents over the petty political point-scoring that informed their statement.

Issued by Michael Beaumont, ActionSA National Chairperson, 26 July 2022