DA NO LONGER COUNTING ON ACTIONSA TO ENSURE STABLE, EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT IN TSHWANE
By Kwena Moloto
DA Tshwane Spokesperson
In the past few weeks the Democratic Alliance (DA) and our partners in the Tshwane multi-party coalition have made every attempt to persuade ActionSA to not withdraw from the coalition, and to desist from making public attacks on the same government in which it serves.
Not only has Mayor Cilliers Brink reached out to ActionSA’s national leadership, but the coalition management committee in Tshwane has written to ActionSA’s local leadership to invoke its obligations in terms of our coalition agreement.
ActionSA’s response has been to treat its Tshwane coalition partners with absolute contempt. ActionSA leaders have behaved as if they are not bound by any coalition agreement, and that their internal processes take precedence over the commitments it made it its coalition partners.
In the process it is gambling with the future of the City of Tshwane, and the lives of Tshwane residents. There is no guarantee that whatever government this gamble delivers will be bound to the principles of non-racialism and the rule of law.
It is clear that whatever its outward pretensions, ActionSA intends to vote in favour of a motion of no confidence in Mayor Cilliers Brink whenever such a motion is tabled. Having failed to clinch a deal with other parties, it is now content to bring down the coalition and then to try its luck with a new deal.
While the party’s national chairperson Michael Beaumont says that party is still reviewing its continuing participation in the Tshwane coalition, party leader Herman Mashaba has already made it clear that ActionSA would prefer to have the EFF as a coalition partner. This sentiment is shared by the party’s Tshwane caucus leader, Jackie Mathebathe.
It was Mathebathe who announced to the media that ActionSA has resolved to withdraw from the Tshwane multi-party coalition. While his remarks were later contradicted by Beaumont, it is Mathebathe who expresses the views of the party’s leader Mashaba.
Yesterday Mathebathe told News24 that the party has not yet made a decision, holding the line of the so-called ‘review’. But in a Facebook post, Mathebathe, who is also known as Mjekana, stated that ‘the days of white monopoly in Tshwane are numbered.’
His post made it clear that he intended to bring down the multi-party coalition in Tshwane by voting in favour of the motion of no confidence in Mayor Cilliers Brink: ‘As the clock ticks down, the racists and DA puppets may howl in desperation, but their time is up. In just 16 days, your so-called “Golden Boy” will be escourted from power, and with him, the last remnants of your privilege will crumble.’
He was also clear on whose authority he was making these statements, saying ‘[w]e are Mashaba and Mashaba is us!’ Like other ActionSA office-bearers Mathebathe is appointed, not elected. ActionSA has removed several of the party’s previous caucus leaders, and unless Mathebathe is also removed, we can only assume that what he has been saying all along is what ActionSA’s Tshwane caucus intends to do.
By this point more people have signed petitions against ActionSA bringing the Tshwane coalition to a fall than have voted for ActionSA in the 2024 general election. The public seem genuinely baffled by the party’s latest turn – rightly so.
Whether due to confusion abouts its values, infighting in its ranks or poor leadership, ActionSA can no longer be relied on to ensure stable, effective government in the City of Tshwane. In rhetoric and positioning, it now seems closer to the EFF than the DA and our other partners.