EFF leader Julius Malema has broached the idea of a coalition with the ANC in recent days while the DA’s John Steenhuisen has again raised concerns over this potential ‘Doomsday Coalition’ as parties intensify their election campaigns.
Malema speaking to JJ Tabane on his Frank Dialogue podcast on YouTube last week said if the ANC gets below 50%, he would be willing to bargain EFF votes with the ANC but only if they make his deputy Floyd Shivambu finance minister.
“The finance department is owned and controlled by Stellenbosch and engages in anti-poor policies, you need a radical,” said Malema.
He said the land issue was crucial to any coalition discussion.
“When I was in the ANC and Baleka Mbete (former deputy president) was a national chairperson and she spoke about how Codesa (Convention for a Democratic SA) sidelined the issue of the land ... it felt like she wanted to cry about it because she knows the originality of where this compromise was made.
“So we will never miss each other with the ANC on the land question because the ANC went to Nasrec (in 2019) and said we must expropriate without compensation but elected wrong leadership, which was scared to pursue the resolution,” Malema said.
He said that this is the same as the EFF’s policy on land.
“These guys wanted the land and said the land must be returned to the rightful owners.”
Steenhuisen, in response to Malema’s comments, said ‘radicals in parties like the ANC, EFF – but more recently also Jacob Zuma’s MK and small party proxies – are preparing to form a Doomsday Coalition that will seal South Africa’s fate’.
The DA leader in a statement, said he had first warned in April last year at the party’s Federal Congress ‘that the forces of destruction in the ANC, EFF and their proxies in small parties like the Patriotic Alliance, were converging towards forming a Doomsday Coalition after the 2024 general election’.
““The day that an ANC-EFF government takes over, it will be Doomsday for South Africa. EFF Doomsday will make the collapse of Zimbabwe look like a dress-rehearsal, and will leave all South Africans destitute – black, coloured, white and Indian. That is why, during the remaining months before next year’s election, the DA will make it our number one priority – and do absolutely everything in our power – to prevent an ANC-EFF Doomsday Coalition from taking power,” Steenhuisen said last year.
“Exactly one year later, this horrifying scenario is becoming real in front of our eyes,” Steenhuisen said.
He said Malema’s comments and EFF secretary-general, Marshall Dlamini’s statement’ that ‘land expropriation without compensation and the nationalisation of mines would form some of the “cardinal pillars” of its planned Doomsday Coalition with the ANC’, added to this concern.
“With these comments, the EFF leadership have, for the first time, publicly confirmed that the DA has been right all along. Radicals in parties like the ANC, EFF – but more recently also Jacob Zuma’s MK and small party proxies – are preparing to form a Doomsday Coalition that will seal South Africa’s fate.”
In KwaZulu-Natal, coalition discussions are more complicated than at national level.
The EFF and ANC relations in KZN soured after the EFF supported a motion to have eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda removed from council.
Initially the fallout looked to be restricted to eThekwini, but EFF provincial chairperson Mongezi Twala had said the party was still assessing its relationship with the ANC in KZN.
Last year, the EFF withdrew from a coalition deal with the IFP, which saw all members serving as deputy mayors resign, allowing the ANC to run three district municipalities and five local municipalities.
Also last year, EFF councillors were involved in a scuffle with eThekwini municipality security guards after the councillors insisted that city manager Musa Mbhele leave a meeting following allegations that the City had failed to spend R1.9bn of a conditional grant allocated to repair infrastructure.
At the time, ANC provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo accused the EFF of trying to capture headlines.
The DA and IFP have a service delivery pact in KZN but IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa said while they are willing to engage with the ANC nationally, there is no common ground between the parties in the province.
Political analyst Professor Ntsikelelo Breakfast said the EFF indicating that it could work with the ANC, was “an interesting turn of events”.
“The fear from the DA is that if the EFF reaches out to the ANC, then it will be a radical partnership.
“This fear is that they might implement the rolling out of the land reform and there might be nationalisation, because those are policy prescripts of the EFF.”
He said regardless of the ANC receiving more or less than the 50% majority, the party will still be the dominant player.
The Mercury