The ANC will not abandon its coalition with smaller parties in the City of Johannesburg despite them bringing a motion of no confidence against its mayor Dada Morero, secretary general Fikile Mbalula said this week. Mbalula also ruled out working with ActionSA and the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the metro despite ActionSA saying it would abstain from the vote and speculation that the DA would do the same. Mbalula said it was too late to change coalition partners less than a year before local government elections.
“We can’t work with the DA now, ten months before the elections because we are on the verge of getting to the people and testing their will,” Mbalula told theMail & Guardianon the sidelines of a media briefing. “We are partners at GNU (government of national unity), we are doing well at the GNU but we are on the verge of election campaigns, and literally, we are one foot in, in terms of testing the will of the people.” At the time of going to print on Thursday, it was not clear whether the motion would go ahead or succeed, if it did. But sources said the minority parties had indicated a willingness to withdraw it if the ANC in Johannesburg wrote a letter to the party’s national leaders requesting Morero’s recall.
One ANC insider told theM&Gthat the minority partners backing the motion did not have a problem with the party itself but rather with Morero. “The problem is Dada, we actually wanted to keep him as a mayor but the minorities are having a problem with him. We will have to write to the national office bearers about the issues raised by the minority parties,” the source said.
Read Full Article on Mail & Guardian
[paywall]
Another insider told the M&G that another proposal on the table was for Morero to resign from his position. “We don’t want him to be the first mayor to be removed by his own people,” they said. But Mbalula said it would destabilise the metro to remove Morero some 10 months before the elections.
“We presume that the elections will be in November or December, that’s 10 months. All political parties are now focusing on their tasks, gearing themselves for local government elections and we are busy here destabilising the government,” he said, accusing the minority parties of being disingenuous.
[/paywall]
