The DA-led multiparty coalition running Gauteng’s crucial metros of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni received a shot in the arm when it formally included the Patriotic Alliance (PA) in its fold on Tuesday.
The inclusion of the PA will give the coalition more seats in the councils and will stabilise the two municipalities by enabling them to pass their integrated development plans, budgets and service delivery programmes.
The DA mayors running the metros were voted into power after the 2021 municipal elections when the EFF unexpectedly voted with the DA in a move the EFF said was aimed at keeping the ANC out of the cities.
Since then, however, the metros have been rocked by instability, which delayed the election of portfolio committee chairs as ANC, EFF and minority party councillors collapsed proceedings because they were unhappy with the voting procedure.
While the EFF voted the mayors into power, the red berets did not enter into any formal agreement nor sign any deal with the multiparty coalition.
COPE national spokesperson Dennis Bloem told Business Day the pact signed on Tuesday is the same one signed previously by coalition partners including the DA, ActionSA, Freedom Front Plus, IFP, ACDP and COPE.
“It’s the same agreement. But all of us had to sign again in order to include the PA into the coalition,” Bloem said.
ActionSA spokesperson Lerato Ngobeni said the coalition would know by Tuesday evening how many seats it holds in each of the three local councils.
She said the inclusion of the PA “stabilises the coalition”.
“As you know, votes are important for us to do what we need to do in these cities, such as passing the budget.”
The coalition partners said in a statement: “The multiparty coalition formation in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni today signed new coalition agreements to bring the Patriotic Alliance into the formation. These agreements will not only pave a new path forward towards expanding the Gauteng metro coalitions but will consolidate the majority coalition in the City of Johannesburg.
“It has been the express goal of the coalitions since their inception to keep the ANC out of power and bring honest, transparent, and service delivery-orientated government to the residents of the metros governed by the multiparty coalition.”
The coalition partners said the PA’s inclusion will “strengthen the formation and its ability to provide a stable platform to do the work needed to fix the damage done by ANC governments and to build a resident-orientated government to serve the needs of the people”.
PA leader Gayton McKenzie said: “We in the PA have been clear that we do not care who we work with — we would even work with the AWB if we had to — because we should not bring personalities into politics. SA politics is full of personalities. It is all about who does not like whom.”
He said SA has employment of “50% plus”, while the country leads the world in mineral deposits. “It cannot be that our people cannot have tuck shops in their own country.”
McKenzie said his party is in it for the long run, as long as all coalition partners agree that “there is no big party” in a coalition. If the arrangement is premised on treating one another as equal partners, he said, the future looks bright for coalition governments in SA. McKenzie believes there is “not a single province” that will be governed by an outright majority after the 2024 national and provincial elections.
Additional reporting TimesLIVE
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