ANC to target 17 IFP municipalities – with the help of the EFF

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The ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal leadership will try to take back control of 15 hung rural municipalities in the province, which it lost to an Inkatha Freedom Party-led (IFP) coalition last November through a coalition with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and other opposition parties.

It hopes to do so using votes of no confidence to trigger the collapse of IFP-led coalition governments in 15 of the 17 hung municipalities — including Mhlathuze, Dannhauser and Newcastle — in which the EFF’s support swung mayoral votes in the IFP’s favour after the 2021 local government elections.

A similar process is set to play itself out in Gauteng’s municipalities — and already is in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni metropolitan councils — with the EFF voting in a no-confidence motion in Democratic Alliance (DA)  speaker Vasco da Gama and committing to backing a similar bid to oust mayor Mpho Phalatse. 

After last November’s elections, coalition talks among the opposition parties in the Gauteng hung municipalities broke down, with the EFF and ActionSA breaking the deadlock by voting for DA candidates in the metros.

However, the EFF backed the motion of no confidence — brought by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and supported by the ANC — which removed Da Gama as Johannesburg speaker earlier this month.

Last week EFF president Julius Malema and deputy president Floyd Shivambu met with the ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Siboniso Duma and secretary Bheki Mtolo and with their Gauteng counterparts Panyaza Lesufi and TK Nciza to discuss coalitions in the municipalities in both provinces.

The meetings, hosted at the EFF headquarters in Johannesburg, followed on an announcement by Malema last month that the party would participate in coalition discussions with the ANC at council level despite driving the process to have Cyril Ramaphosa impeached over the Phala Phala scandal.

The meeting with the KwaZulu-Natal delegation is understood to have gone some distance towards securing a coalition agreement between the two parties at local government level in the province and will be implemented once the fine detail is agreed upon.

ANC KwaZulu-Natal spokesperson Mafika Mndebele said a coalition with the EFF and the National Freedom Party (NFP) would help the ANC regain control of a number of municipalities it had lost to the IFP-led coalition.

“In the last local government elections the ANC won in a number of municipalities, but did not get the 50% plus one necessary to govern alone. The opposition parties then ganged up against the ANC and took control of those municipalities,” Mndebele said.

“We have launched these coalition talks now in line with the approach that is coming out from the leadership and felt we should kick start the process of engaging everyone, among and including the EFF.”

The municipalities immediately being targeted include Dannhauser, Newcastle and Mhlathuze, three ANC strongholds which went to the IFP’s coalition after November, once the agreement with the EFF was finalised.

“As soon as the deal is concluded and as soon as the ANC amasses enough support we are going to take over those municipalities through a new coalition with those opposition parties,” he said.

“There are around 10. The  key ones, Mhlathuze, Newcastle, Dannhauser, Amajuba and many others where the ANC could not secure enough votes. If we work with the EFF, together with the NFP and other parties, we will be able to secure those municipalities.”

In the Zululand district municipality, the IFP took control courtesy of the EFF’s single seat, which gave it a majority over the 18 seats won by the ANC/NFP coalition in the local government poll.

In return, the EFFs Thulani Ndlovu was voted in as deputy mayor of the district, serving under the IFP’s Thulasizwe Buthelezi. 

However, the IFP faces losing Zululand — and a number of the municipalities falling under it — due to the souring of the relationship between Buthelezi and Ndlovu, and the EFF’s decision to reconsider all of its agreements with the IFP in the province.

The EFF was given deputy mayor posts by the IFP in Zululand and in Mhlathuze, Newcastle, Amajuba, Alfred Duma and Amajuba, and is likely to receive the same positions from the ANC in return for working with it and the NFP.

In eThekwini, where the ANC lost its majority but maintained control through a coalition with a number of smaller parties, the EFF voted with the DA in the election for mayor, deputy mayor and speaker.

However, the ANC has since given the chair of the powerful municipal public accounts committee to the EFF’s Thamsanqa Xuma, a token of good faith on the ANC’s part, which will help it strengthen its control of the council, which it won by a margin of 113 to 104 votes.

Mndebele said the eThekwini ANC leadership had already started discussions around how to secure the party’s control in the city, where it governed via a coalition with nine smaller parties, when ActionSA expelled its previous incumbent as the committee chair, Makhosi Khoza, from the party.

“When ActionSA took whatever measures they took, a vacancy was created there and given the talks that were taking place, we gave that particular seat to the EFF,” he said.

The appointment allowed the ANC to “cement” its relationship with the EFF and would assist in solidifying its control in eThekwini.

Mndebele said, however, that the discussions had not looked beyond the municipalities at potential coalitions with the EFF in 2024 after the national and provincial elections.

“The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal will comfortably win in 2024. We will comfortably retain the province,” Mndebele said.

EFF KwaZulu-Natal leader Vusi Khoza said that discussions had taken place with the ANC leadership from the two provinces to find common ground as part of a process being coordinated nationally, and were still ongoing.

“They are not yet concluded. From the EFF side, we are waiting for the national leadership to give us feedback on the process. After those consultations the EFF is going to, together with the ANC, issue a statement about what it is they agree upon, and what it is they disagree upon,” Khoza said.

Khoza said that what happened next “would depend on whether we find each other with the ANC.”

Asked whether or not the EFF woud back no-confidence motions to oust IFP-led councils, Khoza said this was still under discussion and the national leadership would “continue to provide guidance” as to how to proceed.

“This would be subject to engagement. The EFF will go there and look at it. One would expect an agreement would have an impact in terms of the balance of forces and that the voting patterns would change,” Khoza said.

“We will await the outcome and take it from there.”

IFP national spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa declined to comment.