By: ANG Reporter
After the Congress of the People’s Colleen Makhubele was voted in as the speaker of the Johannesburg City Council on Wednesday afternoon with the support of the Patriotic Alliance (PA), ANC, EFF and other parties, the PA released a statement to clarify its decision to vote against the DA’s candidate.
The Patriotic Alliance said it had been open with the other coalition partners about the decision earlier that morning.
The party said that its head of strategy and negotiations, Charles Cilliers, had sent coalition partners a message in the morning informing them of the following:
“Dear coalition partners
“Although today will be a secret ballot, it is not our style to leave things to the imagination. Due to the disrespect shown to us by the DA during this period, which we could just as easily call a moment of truth for all of us, we will not be supporting their candidate for speaker.
“The legalistic threats from the DA of attempting to enforce the rules of contract law and pursuing “consequences” for violations of contract law are laughable at best and deeply insulting of our intelligence at worst, hence I am telling you openly that you do not have our support today. If you wish to go to court on this, feel free.
“This was a true opportunity to strengthen this coalition, it had nothing to do with what we were made to read in Solly Msimanga’s opinion piece. But no problem. A wise man once told me that all of us are free to do whatever we want in this life, as long as we accept that every choice, action and decision comes with a consequence that will need to be accepted. Indeed, that seven page “final” letter almost had it right on that front.
“The DA could not be more deserving of what is likely to occur this morning in council, while all the other coalition partners could not be less deserving.
“To ActionSA in particular, we have developed great respect for you during this process and you have tried tirelessly to educate the DA on what it means to actually be part of a coalition, but it hasn’t been nearly enough.
“We are the PA and ons baiza nie.”
The PA complained that the DA had been totally unwilling to consider the request of all the other coalition partners to field a candidate from the IFP to take the position of speaker in a bid to balance power in the coalition more fairly.
“They suggested we wait to do this at a later time, but as we told them in our meetings, if now is not the best time, then when would be a good time?”
The party’s unhappiness was exacerbated by a recent Daily Maverick opinion article penned by DA Gauteng chairperson Solly Msimanga, which went on to characterise coalition partners as “children swapping collectables during break” as well as “minnow parties and rent-seekers”.
“Instead of seeing this as a well-intentioned attempt to secure the coalition and cement the IFP and the PA into this government for the next four years, the DA merely issued a ‘final response’ on Sunday rejecting all proposals to reconfigure the government at this time.”
The PA argued that the DA had failed to recognise the fact that all three legislature positions of speaker, chief whip and mayor had gone to the DA unexpectedly due to the support of the EFF prior to the negotiation of the coalition.
“The DA’s insistence that these positions somehow now belonged to them was a deep point of contention among most coalition partners, and became a major stumbling block.
“As the PA, we wish to repeat what we have maintained for years, which is that we are not a branch of the DA or the ANC. We see both these parties in the same way. One is a lion.
One is a tiger. Both of them need to have their hunger for power tamed. They need to learn what it means to share power and both need to learn what it really means to bring change, without delay, to the lives of our people.”
They spoke about the five freedoms that the PA is pursuing as part of its political agenda: Freedom from pollution, freedom from corruption, freedom from crime, freedom from ignorance and freedom from poverty.
They said they would be willing to work with any party that was willing to work with them and allow them the opportunity to deliver the same kind of real change that was being witnessed under the leadership of Mayor Gayton McKenzie in the Central Karoo.
“He is changing lives in partnership with the ANC there, and that should be a big lesson in politics. It is possible to fix South Africa by committing to the virtues of coalition government, where there is mutual respect for coalition partners and all these partners hold each other accountable. As the PA we have found ourselves able to do this most effectively with the ANC, who have shown a greater adaptability and willingness to be humble and share power openly with coalition partners instead of calling them ‘minnows’ or otherwise undermining them and insulting them.
“No political party’s existence should solely be based on hatred for the ANC and trying to vote out the ANC. A party needs its own vision and to be able to fight for the future of all this country’s children, regardless of who may happen to be in a coalition.
“We should also remind the ANC that we will never hesitate to vote them out in any government we are a part of should they begin to display the same kind of arrogance and disrespect that the DA felt they could flaunt towards us and other partners this week.”
The PA added that it had been a “sad moment” on Wednesday when the DA had supposedly changed tack to support the IFP as speaker and be completely open to any other demands the PA might have.
“But as the PA we do not believe in extorting people or bullying them to get what we want. We cannot speak for the DA, but this was not the outcome we thought things would come to when we started the negotiations in good faith following the removal of speaker Vasco Da Gama through no role of our own.
“We work with people who truly want to work with us in a spirit of mutual appreciation and respect, and to effectively take something from the DA that they were never willing to give in the first instance was not something the PA could ever do. We also never do any deal at the last minute. Last-minute deals are too often mistakes and expose parties to being manipulated and tricked. It would also, quite simply, have allowed the public to have a diminished view of the PA and its integrity, but the DA should also be committed to abiding by its own words from Solly Msimanga when he wrote: ‘Is it worth continuously struggling in a dysfunctional coalition or could more be achieved from the opposition benches?’
They said that the DA would possibly once again have the opportunity to display the full extent of what “could be possible to achieve from the opposition benches, if anything”.
“As the PA, however, we do not believe that lives can be transformed by shouting at people who are in power from a chair somewhere in a council building or writing angry press statements about what they may or may not be doing.”
