the ANC in Gauteng is again at loggerheads with its national leadership following the Democratic Alliance’s exclusion from the newly minted provincial cabinet announced by Premier Panyaza Lesufi on Wednesday. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
In September 2013, eight months before the 2014 general elections, the ANC in Gauteng caused a stir when it said then president Jacob Zuma would not campaign for it in the province.
The decision by the ANC in Gauteng was seen as a slight to Zuma; it believed he was unpopular among Gauteng’s black middle class. Instead, it said, it would deploy former state presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe for its 2014 campaign.
The pronouncement by the ANC’s provincial structure drew the ire of then party secretary general Gwede Mantashe, currently the national chairperson, who took issue with the provincial leadership saying Zuma would be used to speak to voters in informal settlements and townships, and not in suburbs.
“There is no constituency and profile of constituency that suits a particular individual. We will send a person whom we think will be able to deal with the audience that will be attended by that leader,” Mantashe had said, adding that the provincial leadership had run “ahead of themselves”.
Fast forward 11 years, and the ANC in Gauteng is again at loggerheads with its national leadership following the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) exclusion from the newly minted provincial cabinet announced by Premier Panyaza Lesufi on Wednesday.
This was despite the DA having 22 of the Gauteng legislature’s 80 seats, only six fewer than the ANC. Moreover, the ANC and DA had signed a statement of intent — on the basis of the national statement of intent — to work with each other in forming national and provincial governments in hung legislatures.
We hope that the defiance Lesufi displayed this week — wearing his premier hat and that of the Gauteng ANC chairperson — will not affect governance in Gauteng, where three of its metros have seen unstable leadership and ever-changing mayoral committees following the 2021 local elections not producing outright majorities.
Budgets and policy positions look set to be political footballs when support is needed to pass tabled legislature motions — the magic number being 41 votes.
Early signs are that there is already a chasm between the ANC national and provincial leadership after Fikile Mbalula, the party’s secretary general, said the party would not work with the Economic Freedom Fighters and the uMkhonto weSizwe party in Gauteng.
Moments later, Lesufi contradicted Mbalula, saying he would work with those parties.
The people of Gauteng, the country’s economic hub, deserve better than the coalition confusion that is playing out.