“The plug must be pulled, it doesn’t matter when,” ANC Ekurhuleni deputy convenor Eric Xayiya said at a media briefing in March 2024.
He was referring to the need to end what he described as an “unholy marriage” between the ANC and the EFF in Ekurhuleni, following the election of a hung council in 2021. The alliance was imposed on the metro by the ANC provincial leadership under premier Panyaza Lesufi. This coalition ran the metro from 2023 until last week.
The only other party with which the ANC could form a coalition as per the 2021 local government election results is the DA. The ANC has 86 seats in the council, the DA 65 and the EFF 31.
The coalition has disproportionately benefited the EFF, which was given five MMC posts and the position of council speaker. That changed last Wednesday when Ekurhuleni mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza (ANC) axed two EFF MMCs, causing EFF leader Julius Malema to withdraw his party from the coalition.
The move took many by surprise, but it was a long time coming and was a calculated decision by Xhakaza, not one taken on a whim — which is how it has been portrayed in some reports.
The ANC in Ekurhuleni has long warned the party provincially and nationally against working with the EFF.
Its regional secretary, Jongizizwe Dlabathi, wrote a lengthy report to the ANC’s national working committee in April 2024, explaining why a coalition with the EFF would be destructive, with reasons ranging from the parties fishing in the same pool for voters to the tendency of Malema’s party to switch sides.
Dlabathi’s report helps explain why Xhakaza, with the support of the ANC in the region, opted to risk the stability of the council with his removal of the EFF’s community services MMC, Bridget Thusi, and her counterpart for human settlements, Kgopelo Hollo.
“The ANC and EFF collaboration that saw the EFF taking strategic portfolios in council weakened most of the ANC-led wards … when it came to responding to critical and basic service delivery challenges. This resulted in an all-time low in service delivery. The ANC is paying the price for it.”
The issue of working with the EFF has also divided the ANC’s national leadership. Many argue that “black parties” should not be sidelined in coalitions in municipalities, provinces and nationally. But others argue against the extractive nature of ties with the EFF, which demands more than its pound of flesh in exchange for support in any governing arrangement.
The exit of the EFF from the Ekurhuleni council has happened in phases. It began with the removal of Gauteng EFF provincial leader Nkululeko Dunga from the finance portfolio, after he publicly clashed with the auditor-general for delaying the release of the metro’s audit. (It turned out that it was Dunga’s department that was holding up the process.) There was also the scandal involving Dunga’s private BMW, which crashed on the R21 and was found to have been unlawfully fitted with blue lights.
Next it was the EFF speaker, Nthabiseng Tshivhenga, who was removed by her own party. The ANC claims this was because of her hard line against corruption and her attempts to promote good governance.
At a media briefing last week, Dlabathi said the EFF tends to “speak left but walk right”. He claimed that in the portfolios they led, EFF members disregarded the metro’s internal capacity, instead putting crucial services out to tender, where prices were usually inflated.
The local government election will be tough. The Ekurhuleni leadership has clearly calculated that it can manage a hung council and that the potential to attract more votes is worth the risk.
Collaboration between the ANC and EFF across Gauteng has not helped either party electorally. In Ekurhuleni and Joburg, both parties declined in support in the 2024 national election, compared with their 2021 local election share.
Dlabathi tells the FM that coalitions have to be better thought out to ensure that citizens are the central focus rather than power plays by political parties.
“You can’t have one party that is overrepresented and can threaten you that it will pull out of a coalition. For me, it is [the EFF’s] obsession with position, as opposed to being sober on the principle of fair and proportional representation.
“If there is a political party that must really be at the centre of leading the government, along with all other political parties that share the common interest, it should be the ANC on a proportional representation basis, and that is what we have been arguing.”
The EFF has often threatened to pull out of coalitions with the ANC in Gauteng. However, it is unlikely to do so. Its electoral support is also in decline. It needs the governing posts it has for access to resources and power over their distribution.
The local government election will show whether the EFF’s decline in 2024 was temporary or terminal. The joker in the pack in Ekurhuleni is the potential role of the MK Party, which did not exist in 2021.
The permutations are fascinating. How much support can MK draw from the ANC and EFF? Can the DA maintain or increase its share? Again, it will likely come down to whether the ANC is prepared to go into an alliance with the DA, as it has nationally and in KwaZulu-Natal, or with MK/EFF, as it has in Gauteng. That could depend in turn on the power Lesufi wields in the ANC.
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