Parties say coalition working well

AFTER governing in coalition for 100 days, opposition parties are confident their model of coalition governance could be the way forward in the 2019 elections.

Briefing the media on their first 100 days in office in the Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Nelson Mandela Bay metros and other municipalities across the country, the parties said it was “so far so good”.

Present were the DA, the IFP, UDM, FF+, the ACDP and COPE.

The EFF did not enter coalitions after the August 3 election, but agreed to co-operate.

IFP chief whip Narend Singh said “we are convinced we did the right thing for the right reasons”.

The party won six municipalities in KZN outright and govern four more because of a coalition with the DA and the co-operation of the EFF.

“So far so good.The doomsayers said it would collapse, but 100 days in, it can only get stronger,” he said.

COPE leader Mosiuoa Lekota said he hoped the coalitions formed would “educate the electorate” that they had the public’s interests at heart.

ACDP leader Kenneth Meshoe said that “unlike Jacob Zuma who has said that the ANC comes before South Africa, we are saying that the country is more important than our individual parties”.

DA leader Mmusi Maimane said “if we continue to work, I don’t believe the ANC will get over 50% on its own in 2019”, adding that if the opportunity for a national coalition to oust the ANC from power in 2019 arose, “we would explore it”.

Singh said “this coalition is the ideal springboard for what will happen going forward. Come 2019, there could be a very different face of South African politics”.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said “it’s time for us to punish the ANC going forward”.

The parties also outlined some of the programmes the successes of their first 100 days in office including blanket bans on the purchase or lease of luxury cars as well as lavish lunches and banquets and stopping blue light brigades in Tshwane.