EFF-IFP alliance failed
THE EFF has decided to end its co-operation with the IFP in hung municipalities after just 14 months.
In a press statement read by its leader, Julius Malema, the EFF announced that it is asking its leaders that were appointed deputy mayors as a result of the agreements in November 2021 to resign from their positions. Its councillors will vote in favour of motions of no-confidence in IFP mayors.
The municipalities to be affected by this are: Zululand, Amajuba, uThukela, uMkhanyakude and King Cetshwayo district municipalities; as well as the Ulundi, Nongoma, Mtubatuba, uMhlathuze, Jozini, Dannhauser, Alfred Duma, Nkosi Langalibalele, Abaqulusi, uPhongolo and uMhlabuyalingana local municipalities.
The partnership between the two, designed to diminish the power of the ANC, began in 2016. They worked together, buoyed by their shared interest in seeing the ANC lose control of provincial and municipal government.
Until then, nothing had brought the EFF and IFP close due to different positions on a number of policy areas, especially the economy, land, energy.
Ideologically, they are also quite different, the IFP being more centrist and the EFF a radical leftist party.
They also differ in the constituencies they draw from and in the political strategies influenced by that. The IFP has a strong attachment to the peasant and the more conservative isiZulu speakers, mostly in the countryside.
The EFF is a party of urban youth and the downtrodden proletariat.
The EFF has radical discourse and militancy among its tactics, whereas the IFP styles itself as a moderate party of hierarchy and authority.
At the birth of their alliance, the
EFF was putting pressure on the ANC in the national Parliament through its militant push to pressure and embarrass then president Jacob Zuma over corruption allegations. The IFP was trying to play gentleman’s politics of critical but measured statements, and rejected the EFF’s militancy.
With Zuma gone and Parliament hardly a focus, the EFF has not been as present in the public imagination as during 2016, for instance. It seems the EFF intensified focus on king-making and influencing local government coalitions with its sizeable numbers in recent elections.
The partnership with the IFP evolved into an elaborate arrangement after the November 2021 local government elections. The EFF managed to get itself into strategic positions in a number of municipalities but clearly these deputy mayor positions have limited bearing on the ability of the EFF to show its capacity to govern.
Deputies are most visible and effective when mayors delegate or are not available. One can understand the difficulty the EFF sees with these seniorsounding positions with limited independent authority attached to them. On the other side, the EFF’s decisions to go with the DA-led coalitions in Gauteng backfired.
These governments have failed to take hold and are bedevilled by instability and fluidity.
The EFF gambled on the DA in the hope that there would be low-hanging fruit, but it is clear that the DA failed to manage relations within the coalition. The EFF has turned to the ANC that it called names when it went with the DA in 2021 to form an alternative coalition. It is hoping to redeem itself from just voting with allies, but by getting positions of real influence in a new Joburg city government.
Malema said the EFF “must no longer be on the touchlines of governance, the EFF must begin to occupy meaningful roles of responsibility in local municipalities”.
The IFP refused to join the EFF in bringing down the DA mayor of Johannesburg, Dr Mpho Phalatse, thus also annoying the EFF.
Malema alleged that: “The IFP has unfortunately adopted the arrogant and entitled posture of the racist DA.” He said the EFF would accept “leadership responsibilities of speakers, mayors and members of mayoral committees in different municipalities this year”.
The IFP has responded in a measured way and tried to play wiser in this tiff. It has made three points that point to their strategy.
One has been to reveal that the EFF demanded to fully run uMhlathuze municipalities, which the IFP said would betray its voters in that area.
The second is that the IFP offered to support an EFF mayorship in Durban, the only metro in KZN, but the EFF was not interested. Whether this huge offer was meant to drive a wedge between the EFF and ANC, we will not know.
Whether it was to set up the EFF to test its ability to govern by running a very complex municipality with many difficult political actors, we also don’t know.
The IFP said the two parties decided to part ways “amicably”, whereas the EFF announcement had come across as if it was the EFF wielding its power in a surprise move. Like the EFF that was speaking in such a manner so as to show militancy to its constituency, the IFP sought to appeal to its constituency by being calm, measured and wise-sounding. Steeped in the ideals of trust and respect, the IFP reacted to the EFF in a manner that made the EFF look petulant, emotional and disrespectful, an image that could harm the EFF’s ability to garner the rural vote.
By linking all this to the ANC-EFF proximity and their joint efforts to turn smaller parties into stooges, the IFP worked on the anti-ANC sentiment among IFP voters.
The EFF has not responded to allegations that their reaction was part of their flip-flopping tendency as the IFP alleged.
The IFP immediately downplayed the impact of the EFF decision, saying it may lose one or two of the 29 affected municipalities. So this was not a major move, it said.
This fracas shows just how difficult it is to build tactical alliances in hung municipalities. It shows also how difficult it is to manage the competing interests among parties interested to demonstrate their ability to govern via coalitions. The parties are taking huge risks though that could harm their integrity and trustworthiness. The 2024 and 2026 elections may show some of these risks were ill-advised.