‘ANC worked with National Party’: Holomisa says ruling party should work with DA

United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa has suggested that the ANC and the DA should go into a coalition agreement to manage some municipalities as it would be beneficial for the country.

Speaking at the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC’s) national results centre in Tshwane on Thursday, Holomisa called on the ANC and DA to stop politicising local government, saying a non-partisan approach was needed to improve service delivery.

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He said ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa should call DA federal chairperson Helen Zille and meet up for coffee to discuss the parties’ cooperation.

“I mean if the ANC could work with the Nationalist [sic] Party [NP], which killed a lot of people in this country… And today you have members of the Nationalist [sic] Party in the ranks of the ANC [then] what stops them from working with the DA,” he said.

Holomisa also said race relations in South African would improve if both parties worked together through a coalition.

“DA and ANC should work together and form a government in those areas and they will benefit because one, race relations will improve in this country.

“Number two is that they are not obsessed with ideological differences, after all there is no differences in ideology in all of these political parties,” he told Jacaranda FM.

Hung councils

The UDM leader’s comments comes as 52 councils – double from the previous municipal elections in 2016 – have been declared hung.

Five metropolitan municipalities in the country are expected to be hung including Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay and eThekwini, according to News24.

This means that these hung councils can result in coalition governments.

While the DA made it clear they are not willing to work with the ruling party, ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte said they were willing to work with parties who aligned with the party’s principles.

Duarte said the party’s national working committee (NWC) would meet on Friday to pave a way forward in coalition talks.

READ MORE: Get ready for more coalitions as citizens scatter their votes

Ramaphosa previously shut down the possibility of the ruling party entering into a multiparty coalition.

“Well, firstly, on the outcome of the elections I am not thinking about any form of a deal or coalition. The ANC is going to win outright, that’s how positive I am. Coalition doesn’t exist in my vocabulary. Outright victory is what exists in my vocabulary,” he said.

The IEC expects to announce the 2021 local government election results at 6pm on Thursday.

As of 10am, the ANC was standing at 45.87% of the vote nationally, while the DA trails at 21.22%. The EFF was still third at 10.37%.