DA rails at tactics in metros as EFF starts talks with ANC in Gauteng and KZN

The DA believes the ANC is on an offensive to stage a coup in all three Gauteng metros that are now under the control of multiparty coalitions.

This is while the EFF confirmed it has started talks with the newly constituted ANC provincial leadership in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

EFF leader Julius Malema has slammed the DA‚ accusing it of undermining the red berets. He further confirmed the newly elected leadership of the ANC in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal had begun talks with his party on a possible partnership.

According to DA leader John Steenhuisen‚ there was a co-ordinated offensive by the ANC to collapse the multiparty governments in the metropoles of Johannesburg‚ Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.

Briefing the media on Wednesday‚ Steenhuisen said the ANC‚ in its alleged plot to regain power “through the backdoor”‚ is working with the PAC and AIC.

“Multiparty coalitions would not be easy. Given its track record of greed‚ corruption and extraction‚ the ANC was not going to go without a dirty fight‚” said Steenhuisen.

“And that fight is what we are seeing in the Gauteng metros today. There is a co-ordinated attack on the coalition governments of all three Gauteng metros‚ orchestrated by the ANC and supported by its small proxy parties.

“The mayors of these metros‚ who all happen to be DA mayors‚ are being targeted simultaneously to destabilise these governments and let the ANC in via the backdoor.

“In Tshwane, the ANC has submitted a motion of no confidence in mayor Randall Williams [which council entertains on Thursday] while in Johannesburg its allies‚ the PAC and the AIC‚ have done the same to mayor Mpho Phalatse, and we now understand that similar plans are afoot against mayor Tania Campbell in Ekurhuleni.”

Steenhuisen said the DA would do all in its power to ensure the ANC’s mission to collapse coalition governments did not succeed. The ANC was desperate to regain the metros because of the financial benefits it drew from controlling them in the past, he said.

It was no accident that after losing the big cities‚ he said‚ the ANC struggled financially to the point that it had become the norm at Luthuli House not to pay staff on time, he said.

“This is the work of the ANC that finds itself cut off from its patronage network in these Gauteng metros. As a result it now cannot fund its own operations or pay its own staff‚ not to mention the blow that this has dealt the lavish lifestyles many of its leaders have become accustomed to‚” he said.

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