ANC to ditch unproductive local government coalitions

The ANC will announce at the end of January which coalition partnerships it will retain or drop after a national review.

ANC national executive committee (NEC) member David Makhura said the party could not remain in coalitions with parties that are not willing to serve the people.

“There are certainly municipalities where things are not improving, and the ANC will be able to announce, once it has completed the work at the end of January, [the] municipalities [in which] we are not going to participate in coalitions,” he said.

Makhura was speaking during a media briefing by a national task team on coalitions on the sidelines of a three-day NEC meeting in Mpumalanga yesterday, where the party is preparing for its 112th birthday bash.

The ANC is under internal pressure to pull out of coalition arrangements with the EFF, especially in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.

Makhura said the decision was made in October last year after a framework to manage coalitions in hung municipalities was adopted in April.

Nine guiding principles included that coalitions must be based on a common minimum programme, coalition partners must have a shared set of governance values, and the party that has won the most votes should essentially lead the coalition.

“Coalitions should not be about political parties and wheeling and dealing, but it must be that every municipal coalition must be assessed on the basis that it is really improving service delivery.”

He said work done by the local government interventions subcommittee has enabled the party to assess the various coalition partnerships it is now in.

“We have 81 hung councils across the country and since October, when the NEC took this decision, we have been busy reviewing and assessing [the] various municipalities where the ANC is involved in hung councils. The report of the secretary-general to the NEC was that we will complete this work at the end of January.”

The NEC did not discuss possible coalitions at the national and provincial level because it is aiming for an outright majority, Makhura said.