Tshwane elections: DA and ANC neck-on-neck, EFF kingmakers say no party excluded from coalition talks
By Thursday, 99% of votes were captured in Tshwane afternoon and none of the parties attained majority votes, setting the ground for the metro to be led by another coalition government.
With the municipal election results count near closing, the DA and ANC run neck-on-neck and while neither have an outright majority, one of the key decision-makers the EFF has said it would not exclude any party from coalition talks.
By Thursday afternoon, 99% of votes were counted in Tshwane and none of the parties attained majority votes, setting the ground for the metro to be led by yet another coalition government.
The ANC was in the lead with 34.2% followed by the DA at 32.3% and the EFF at 10.6%
During a press briefing at the IEC national operation results centre, EFF leader Julius Malema said the party was open to coalition discussions and that no party was excluded from these – including the DA.
But these talks would only take place under certain conditions, Malema said.
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Malema said the EFF would enter into a coalition government in Tshwane with a party that would commit to putting people first; a party that would say, “we will give the people of Hammanskraal drinkable water in the next six months”.
He said if the ANC wanted to take over the metro through coalition formation with the EFF, it would need to approve the bill for land expropriation.
“The people that will come to us must know that the first thing on the agenda before sharing positions will be a commitment to the people.”
He said the coalition partner would have to be committed to ensuring drinkable water, reliable electricity, jobs and flushable toilets.
“It (a party) must come with a clear picture on land distribution, people who are willing to listen to the poor and their needs,” he said.
“We will not do a coalition of positions; we are prepared to vote for people who are willing to serve our people.”
He said should they not find partners to work with, they will not take part in coalitions.
“The work starts now, the elections are done now.”
The election results did not show any growth for the EFF in Tshwane.
The party’s treasurer-general, Omphile Moatwe, said they could not pin this on the dissolution of the regional leadership a few months before elections.
“We cannot say at this point that the dissolution of the leadership was amongst the factors for us not growing in that region because the results are not concluded just yet. We will go back and analyse the results after the conclusion of the results.”
While the EFF in previous elections formed a coalition with the DA which later collapsed, Moatwe said the DA was not excluded from approaching them.
“We are not excluding anyone from coming to speak to us, but we will not go out and propose coalitions to them – we are not desperate.”
She said there was a team established to look into which party the EFF could form a coalition with.
The results were expected to be announced by the IEC on Thursday at 18:00.
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