COMPLEX COALITION CHEMISTRY

They may seem to be made for each other, but an ANC/EFF tie-up after next year’s elections is only a remote possibility

It is easy to assume that the ANC and the EFF will make natural bedfellows after the 2024 election. But such a tie-up is far from certain, despite the desperate experimentation by the ANC in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Former Gauteng premier David Makhura is heading a team tasked with formulating a coherent approach to coalitions. The team includes former Polokwane mayor Thembi Nkadimeng, who was named minister of co-operative governance & traditional affairs in the reshuffle this week, and Nomvula Mokonyane, party deputy secretary-general and head of elections.

At a national level, a coalition with the EFF which pours scorn on President Cyril Ramaphosa at every opportunity would be difficult to swallow for the ANC’s new national executive committee, most of whose members are aligned with the president.

Only last week EFF leader Julius

Malema told journalists Ramaphosa was a hollow shell.

“The president has resigned and you all know that. His conscience has concluded that he doesn’t have what it takes. The president is there in body but the soul is gone,” he said.

And at the opening of parliament,

Malema, citing the Phala Phala saga, led

EFF MPs in trying to storm the stage in protest against Ramaphosa delivering the state of the nation address.

The EFF’s actions recalled the days of its campaign against constitutional delinquent-in-chief, Jacob Zuma. Ramaphosa and Zuma are cut from the same cloth, the EFF repeatedly asserts.

Malema has told journalists that the EFF is open to joining coalitions, but only with parties that would accept its conditions. In the past its conditions for working with the

ANC have included expropriation without compensation, nationalising the Reserve Bank and, in 2016, the resignation of Zuma as president.

Given the EFF’s hostility towards Ramaphosa a “puppet of white capital it would not be a stretch to predict his departure would be an EFF condition for partnership.

No party worth its salt would agree to fire its leader.

A more likely option for the ANC nationally would be to cobble together a coalition with a number of smaller parties in parliament including the Patriotic Alliance, which has been making strides in by-elections in the Western Cape and Gauteng.

Enter Deputy President Paul Mashatile, who is regarded as having a better relationship with Malema. In the unlikely event that Ramaphosa stepped down before the polls next year, Mashatile would be in the driving seat in the ANC. Analysts have suggested that in this event, Malema could be offered the post of deputy president as part of a coalition agreement.

This scenario, too, seems far-fetched. Should Mashatile become president, be it next year or later, Malema and the EFF would probably turn on him almost by reflex. The party’s goal is not short-term positions but long-term political power.

Second, the deputy president post would be a poisoned chalice for Malema — he would catch flak along with the ANC for government failures.

So nationally an ANC/EFF tie up is a long shot. But Makhura and his team are also assessing coalition policy at local government level. ANC structures in Gauteng and KZN are already working with the EFF in key municipalities, such as Joburg and Tshwane where the DA has been ousted.

Ekurhuleni is on borrowed time, Malema has said.

Interestingly, in Joburg and Tshwane the EFF refused to let the mayorships go to the ANC — which opened the door for Al Jama-ah and COPE respectively. The ANC leadership nationally has been closely watching these arrangements, allowing its structures to experiment with this approach.

But it is creating discomfort for some national leaders, who fear service delivery could deteriorate even further with elections on the horizon.

While Makhura may develop a road map for provincial structures to make deals with the EFF, complications could arise there too if the EFF decides the premier should come from its own ranks or from a smaller party.

It would be an awkward position for the ANC, since control of billions of rand in provincial budgets would be at stake — a huge risk.

The coalition landscape is more complicated than a “power at all costs” approach for the ANC, and a tie-up with the EFF has more pitfalls than benefits. There is an alternative for the ANC — one that some in the party believe is its only real route to redemption — and that is to avoid coalitions completely and dutifully occupy those opposition benches. x