DA slams door shut on coalition with MK Party in hung eThekwini - IOL

The DA has slammed the door shut on any coalition deal with the uMkhonto weSizwe Party in eThekwini, warning that partnering with Jacob Zuma’s outfit would force it to babysit a broke ally to protect municipal coffers.

DA eThekwini mayoral candidate Haniff Hoosen told reporters at the KwaZulu-Natal results operations centre in Durban on Friday morning that the blue party would never work with MK.

The hard stance came as the provincial count reached 71% completion, showing MKP leading KwaZulu-Natal with 34.55% of the vote and 264 seats, followed by the IFP on 21.96% with 184 seats and the ANC on 21.37% with 155 seats.

The DA sat in fourth place provincially with 12.06% and 68 seats.

In eThekwini, MKP led the local tally with 42.18% support, while the DA sat on 22.33%, leaving both parties short of an outright majority and guaranteeing a hung metro.

Hoosen said the party had resolved prior to the vote to freeze formal coalition talks until the final seat allocations were completed, but insisted its red line on MKP was non-negotiable.

"What I can tell you is that we have taken a decision not to work with the MK party.

"To get into a partnership with the MK, if they have some cash problems, we're going to have to watch over them to make sure that our finances are managed properly. So then it's going to be a problem for us.

"So for that reason, we've decided and we've made a statement publicly that we will not form a coalition with the MK."

Hoosen said while the DA does not yet know which parties it can unite with, any governing pact in the metro would require a minimum of 113 council seats.

"In the meantime, we're going to look at what the final figures and seats look like.

"Remember that in order to govern eThekwini, you need 113 seats in total.

"So it will depend which political parties that come together can actually bring 113 seats to form a government in eThekwini."

Hoosen said it was a relief that MKP had failed to land an outright majority in the coastal metro after early projections had shown them polling well above 50%.

"We expected that the MK obviously was going to be the largest party here and we respect that.

"But the important thing for us and I think for the voters in eThekwini is that they did not achieve the kind of majority that they wanted. "Remember at one stage, MK was polling at about 55%. MK themselves said that they wanted to get to two-thirds majority.

"So the real picture that's going to emerge, as you will see by the end of the day, is that they will not get to the majority that they were looking for.

"And then that opens up the real possibility of a coalition government in eThekwini."