ANC braces for coalition talks as vote share plummets - News24

The ANC is open to speaking and working with all parties to form coalition governments; however, any such talks are still too premature.

This is according to ANC deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane, who gave an impromptu press briefing at the national Results Operations Centre in Midrand on Thursday.

Vote counting is continuing, but so far, the results show that the ANC’s national vote share has collapsed to less than 32%, down from 45.59% in 2021.

Projections are that the ANC is set to lose even more ground, especially in metros.

“On coalition arrangements. It is premature for us to start talking because the ANC is open to talking to everyone and working with everyone, as long as we ensure stability,” Mokonyane said.

On Friday, DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis said his party had already drafted coalition agreements ahead of formal negotiations and would propose a “government of local unity” as one option for the likely 160 hung councils that this week’s election will deliver.

Hill-Lewis introduced what he called the government of local unity (GLU) model – quipping that he may be “the first to use the acronym” – at one end of the spectrum of coalition models being considered by the DA.

The GLU approach would see multiple parties brought into coalition governments, creating coalitions with “much more than 50%” support, rather than the minimum threshold needed for governance.

He said that the DA’s federal council chairperson had been “working the phones and working the meetings” over the past 24 hours, engaging in preliminary discussions with multiple parties.

“At the moment, those talks are informal; they are more discussions about having discussions, and that’s fine.”

The DA would engage with the ANC, which remains the second-largest party in most metros, as well as other parties that secured council seats.

The ANC is staring another humiliating election result in the face, with its lowest national showing looming and its chances of governing a metro on its own gone.

News24 asked Mokonyane if the ANC was experiencing a decline similar to those of other former liberation movements in Africa.

“In fact, this gives us an opportunity to repackage and renew the ANC because renewal is ongoing; it’s not time bound,” she said.

“We are renewing ourselves, and some of the work that we have done going to local government was part of the renewal of the ANC. We did not only take members of the branch executive committee candidates, but we also took ourselves to the people,” she said.

Mokonyane reflected on the ANC’s campaign and said the party had this time invested more in direct interaction with individual voters.

“The other issue with this campaign is that we were able to not only work among ourselves, where the religious bodies started confirming and affirming the ANC’s manifesto,” Mokonyane said.

She added that the delay in the candidate list process also affected the time frames for canvassing and actually going out to voters, “which is something that we will reflect on, including the conferences that went on and coincided with our election process”.

The ANC’s national working committee (NWC) is scheduled to meet on Monday to reflect on the poll result. Mokonyane said the party would not take a “half-baked” report to any structure.

“The national elections team will put together a report and take it through the secretary-general’s office for the officials and to present before the NWC, and we will get a mandate from them,” Mokonyane said.

She said that while the ANC and the DA were partners in the government of national unity, “nothing is sacrosanct”.

The FF Plus is also a member of the ruling national coalition.

The ANC recently indicated that the DA’s participation in this structure would be reviewed. This came after the DA joined litigation to oppose the ANC’s ultimately successful bid before the Constitutional Court to include its candidates from six municipalities in candidate lists after the party missed the deadline to submit these lists as final.

She said the DA’s actions meant “these are the people you must watch, and these are the people that when you relate with them, you must know that ordinarily they don’t stand for what you are”.

News24 surveyed 5,001 registered voters to reveal who leads, what voters want fixed, and which coalitions South Africans could support.

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