The ANC has taken a hard line against the DA’s “moonshot pact”, which seeks to unseat the governing party in next year’s elections, saying the arrangement with other opposition parties is fundamentally opposed to transformation.
This comes as the ANC’s top brass considers limiting the number of political parties that can be represented in councils and legislatures as part of its grand plan to formalise coalition agreements ahead of next year’s elections, in which the governing party’s share of the vote could fall below 50%.
Several polls, including by the ANC itself, suggest its electoral support could fall below the 50% mark during the 2024 general election.
The DA is in a race against time to get smaller parties and possible newcomers to band together to topple the ANC, which is for the first time since 1994 facing huge electoral losses.
The opposition party’s “moonshot pact” comes in a year when the IMF expects economic growth of just 0.1%, rising to about 1.5% over the medium term, amid a deepening power crisis and transport and logistics constraints, which are strangling economic activity, adding to ANC’s concerns of losing its electoral majority.
“The moonshot pact is an ideological issue ... the DA is trying to gather all the forces which are profoundly and fundamentally opposed to the transformation of SA,” the ANC political education committee co-ordinator David Makhura said on the sidelines of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting on Sunday.
The DA says the IFP, ActionSA, Freedom Front Plus, National Freedom Party and United Independent Movement have agreed to meet in coming months to formalise the moonshot pact.
To counter the pact, Makhura says the ANC NEC has mandated President Cyril Ramaphosa to convene a meeting with like-minded civil society organisations that are committed to “transformation, development and service delivery”.
“Anyone who thinks they can successfully exclude the ANC from building a vibrant SA where the economy grows and employs more people ... we wish them good luck. That’s the moonshot pact,” Makhura said during a media briefing.
Collective executive system
The ANC is also considering introducing the collective executive system, which scraps the mayoral executive system and takes powers away from mayors and allows a new committee to run the 80 hung councils in the country.
“Among key challenges we’re facing in the country is that we have unstable and dysfunctional coalitions affecting hugely on service delivery in municipalities,” he said.
“We’ve seen much more stability in municipalities run by the collective executive system over the mayoral system. This means parties will be represented proportionally according to the seats they got in councils.”
It is speculated that the ANC and EFF could share power at national level after the general election. This comes after the ANC-EFF agreement in Gauteng, SA’s economic heartland, that led to two mayors (Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni) being removed through motions of no confidence.
However, Makhura said the party has not discussed any further coalitions with any other political party after next year’s elections, saying that the party will be campaigning to win.
“The starting point should be working to win the elections; we are not resigned to coalitions. When we deal with coalitions you must have a national approach and engage uniformly. We must also agree that we don’t tamper with the administration work in municipalities,” said Makhura.
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