Herman Mashaba ditches the EFF in coalition talks

ActionSA president Herman Mashaba has announced that his party has rejected a coalition deal with the EFF that would have seen the ruling ANC stage a comeback via the backdoor in municipalities it lost in last week’s local government elections.

In a statement on Saturday, Mashaba confirmed that his party was walking away from the proposed deal after it met on Friday night to discuss the proposal.

“I have personally written to the EFF and communicated our position. It was a letter that respectfully expressed our appreciation for their engagements and our reservations regarding their proposal.

“In the event of ActionSA’s involvement in a coalition government, our response also committed ActionSA to collaborate with any party with regard to the service delivery priorities of their constituencies in relation to the development of budgets,” said Mashaba.

He said while his party’s senate, its highest decision-making body, discussed a range of issues with the proposal, the primary issue they had with the deal was that  it was dependent on the support of the ANC.

“ActionSA committed during the campaign that we would never work with the ANC, and any arrangement that is dependent on ANC support would be a violation of that commitment to the SA people.

“ActionSA has been unapologetic that you cannot fix the problem in SA by partnering with the ANC which is the cause of that problem,” said Mashaba.

He said under the EFF arrangement, service delivery cannot be prioritised because the ANC wants departments filled with people appointed on the basis of who they know, not what they know. 

“Under such an arrangement ActionSA could not fulfil its mandate to fight corruption because it would, invariably, be investigating and acting against those with whom it is in coalition.

“ActionSA is working tirelessly with other political parties to produce a coalition arrangement that puts the residents first,” said Mashaba. 

He said like-minded parties should act quickly and decisively to put in place an arrangement that reflects the will of the SA people to remove the ANC from power and keep them in the opposition benches so that the work to fix SA can begin.

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