Momentum builds for ANC to dump DA after municipal elections

The anti-DA wave is growing in the ANC before the municipal polls on Wednesday, with most leaders saying the former liberation movement must not entertain the blue party in any of the hung municipalities after Wednesday.

This has culminated in even erstwhile staunch supporters of the GNU, in which the ANC and DA have most of the spoils, calling for Luthuli House to snub Nkululeko House.

Mbalula changes tune

Among those who have changed their tune is ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, a former chief advocate of the ANC-DA partnership, who has publicly called for the relationship to be reviewed.

Insiders say the issue that convinced Mbalula to have a change of heart was the DA opposing the ANC case against the Electoral Commission of South Africa over the exclusion of 181 candidates, a case which the ANC eventually won at the apex court.

Those close to Mbalula said he felt betrayed by the DA joining a case that would have buried him politically if he had lost at the Constitutional Court.

Asked about this on the campaign trail, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, said the relationship with the DA was “reviewable”.

Calling for a divorce

The ANC Veterans League, which was first to canvass for the ANC going to bed with the DA, is also said to be calling for a divorce. The ANC Women’s League too is said to be leaning towards moving away from the DA for its own survival.

The ANC Youth League is more blunt in its calls that the relationship between the party of OR Tambo and the DA has reached its sell-by date.

Youth League president Collen Malatji did not mince his words in an interview with Sunday World yesterday: “We are clear that snubbing the DA must be done immediately; it is long overdue. We are g**vol because it is clear that the DA wants to destroy the ANC. This was obvious long ago with their spirited opposition to the transformative policies of the ANC.

“They are anti-BEE, anti-transformation, anti-affirmative action and against Bela [Basic Education Laws Amendment] and the NHI [National Health Insurance].

“Now, there is no reason for the ANC to give such people power to reverse the gains of freedom and affirm apartheid. The DA is a National Party in blue and is doing everything to preserve the legacy of apartheid at the expense of the black majority.”

Malatji said the Youth League was lobbying for all “pro-black” political parties to unite against the DA and stop it from taking government anywhere where it did not have an outright majority.

“We are clear that the EFF and all black political parties must unite against the DA and remove it from levers of power. We are actively lobbying for that and that is why we have said the EFF must grow up and stop being childish and prepare to be in government.”

Hung municipalities and the way forward

Several ANC national executive members said the issue would probably dominate the NEC meeting that would be convened after the elections to decide the ANC approach in hung municipalities.

Whatever was decided, they said, would probably extend to the GNU and government of provincial unity in KwaZulu-Natal.

ANC leaders say the DA can see that divorce papers have been mailed; hence, its desperate push to project itself as winning twice as many votes as the ANC in Johannesburg after Wednesday in the many “predictive polls” that have been bandied about.

“The overwhelming sentiment within the ANC is that it is not sustainable for [it] to continue with the DA” a senior ANC leader said. “Even the most ardent agitator back then and subsequent to the formation of the GNU, which is the Veterans League, is singing a different tune.”

ANC national spokesperson Hlengiwe Bhengu said the party was busy with its last push for an “overwhelming and outright majority” to govern on its own.

DA national spokesperson Jan de Villiers had not responded to questions at the time of going to publication.