ANC, EFF ‘must stop bickering about Tshwane and move on’

The ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) must accept defeat in Tshwane, move on and understand that the metro is not their ground.

This is the view of political analyst Sandile Swana, who said the battle for Tshwane will continue and attempts to destabilise the new Democratic Alliance-led (DA) coalition government will continue unless the ANC and EFF realised their time is over and give new mayor Cilliers Brink and the DA space to govern and deliver services to Tshwane residents.

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Another analyst, Daniel Silke, said the ANC would continue to cause havoc to destabilise any coalition led by the DA or any other party, but this could backfire in future elections. He said the ANC has to choose between playing political games or be a good critical opposition.

ANC weak in Tshwane

Swana said the ANC and its coalition partners were strong in other Gauteng metros, but it has been proven that they are weak in Tshwane and the DA-led coalition had a stranglehold on the capital city.

Brink was contested by Congress of the People (Cope) mayoral candidate Ofentse Moalusi, who was supported by the ANC, EFF and their smaller partners.

The DA’s victory signals a shift from the previous round of council elections when the EFFCope side beat the DA, which saw the disgraced former mayor Murunwa Makwarela winning. But Makwarela was removed after it was discovered he was an unrehabilitated insolvent.

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Swana said if the EFF and ANC did not stop their attempts to oust the new administration, service deliver would suffer.

“They must concede defeat and wait until the next election in three year’s time. I’m quite hopeful that they have learnt now that they have been defeated,” he said.

“There are places where they can win and Tshwane is probably not one of those. The ANCEFF-led coalition is strong but not as strong as they would like it to be. They are not an overwhelming force,” Swana said.

Silke said the ANC would try to convince voters that coalitions were chaotic and ineffective in governance and they must therefore vote for a party that delivers, which is the ANC.

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“In the next few months and as we move to the election next year, the ANC will try to have another go at trying to unseat Brink as an election propaganda tack,” said Silke.

Opportunity for DA

The victory was secure for the DA but if bureaucracy did not comply and a deep rot with financial administration and the issue of corruption in Tshwane was not resolved in the next few months, there will be much pressure on Brink. He said the ANC will be playing politics again in attempt to unseat the DA.

“I think there is a window of opportunity for the DA to perform,” Silke said.

He said the ANC needed to make a critical choice since the local government is in a mess in most of the major municipalities.

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Silke said the party must choose whether to continue with political games or where coalitions had established themselves to play a role of traditional and critical opposition to assist the municipalities.

“This also applied to bureaucrats who could be obstructionist as well,” he said. “If the ANC continued with political games, it will affect their election campaign for 2024 and this did not help the ANC.”