Sunday World (South Africa)

No ANC decision to go into a coalition with the DA, says NEC member Mhlauli

‘Opposition want back door to Union Buildings’

- By Mawande Amashabala­la mawande@sundayworl­d.co.za

The ANC’S national executive committee (NEC) has not reached any decision to go to bed with the DA in the event of hung national and provincial elections.

Any discussion that the DA and the ANC would form a coalition is nothing more than Da-sponsored misinforma­tion.

Nonceba Mhlauli, a member of the national working committee and the NEC, stated as much in an interview with Sunday World Engage last week.

Mhlauli’s opinions are in response to Snuki Zikalala, the president of the ANC Veterans League, and his supporters pushing for the ruling party to form a coalition with the DA following the elections, claiming that the official opposition was a better devil than the other opposition groups.

Mhlauli, neverthele­ss, thinks the DA intends to use the ANC as a back door in order to march into the Union Buildings.

According to Mhlauli, even the third biggest party in parliament, the EFF, had woken up to the same realisatio­n as the DA: they cannot govern the country without the ANC as part of government.

“The ANC that I’m a member of and the NEC that I sit in doesn’t have that view (of going to bed with DA).

“There is no NEC decision that says the DA is the likely party,” said Mhlauli.

“I believe it’s the DA that’s behind that idea because they want a back door to the Union Buildings, and the EFF is also starting to play with that idea because they want a back door into the executive, but there’s no ANC that is discussing what must happen on the fourth of June after the elections in terms of those two parties.”

Mhlauli believes the DA has gone off the rails under its current leader, John Steenhuise­n, who will likely suffer the same fate as his predecesso­r, Mmusi Maimane, and be removed from the position after the elections.

Said Mhlauli: “The DA is not a threat to the ANC.

“The DA has the most chaotic campaign ever. John Steenhuise­n is [running] some ‘swart gevaar’, sending people SMS’S and putting them into panic mode.”

Mhlauli believes that neither the EFF nor the MK Party will dent the ANC’S electoral support.

In her view, the EFF was disintegra­ting because of power centralise­d to its “supreme leader”, while MK was nothing but a convention of ANC rejects.

“The renewal process will naturally rid itself of certain people in the organisati­on like those in the MK; for example, Mervyn Dirks would not find oxygen in the ANC that is as coherent and on the path that we are on right now.

“Why am I making an example with Mervyn Dirks? You would have seen his public outbursts, what he would’ve done in parliament when he showed the middle finger and all those things that we don’t want to associate with the ANC.”

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Nonceba Mhlauli

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