Thapelo Amad of Al Jama-ah. (Photo: Gallo Images / Papi Morake) 
Any moves by any of the players towards coalitions will involve serious long-term risks and it seems that there is not much strategic thinking involved. Voters are watching these political parties more closely than ever, in the lead-up to the highly contested elections of 2024. If there ever was any principle, the remnants of it have flown out of the window.
On Thursday evening, following the removal of the DA’s Mpho Phalatse as mayor of Joburg, the ANC in the city released a statement. It confirmed that it would support Thapelo Amad, who would serve as the “Transitional Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg”.
As Amad’s party, Al Jama-ah, has just three seats in the council, this is certainly a well-informed description.
Amad claimed on Friday after his election that residents would be able to see “a difference” in just 100 days.
Considering the appalling state of the city, two questions emerge.
The first is, could anybody make a difference in just 100 days? The services are so bad, the roads so poor, the traffic lights so broken, the electricity infrastructure so damaged, to list just a few, that that seems impossible.
The second is, will Amad still be mayor 100 days from now? When someone’s appointment is described as “transitional”, it’s obvious they are the midpoint of a change, from one appointment to another.
To its credit, the ANC in Joburg has been transparent. Its regional chair, Dada Morero, confirmed on Friday morning that Amad had been selected because he was acceptable both to them and the EFF, as part of their ongoing negotiations. He confirmed that the two bigger parties were still discussing some form of coalition agreement.
Earlier, on Thursday morning, both the ANC and the EFF failed to arrive for an eThekwini council meeting to elect a new deputy mayor, meaning it could not go ahead. This is likely to have been planned, a sign that the two parties were not yet ready to vote because they had not reached an agreement.
Meanwhile, in Ekurhuleni, where the EFF is still adamant that it wants the mayoralty there, a council meeting on Thursday afternoon was cut short after the Speaker refused to hold a vote. This led to EFF members surrounding him and appearing to push him.
Then, on Sunday morning, it emerged that EFF leader Julius Malema had told all of his members who were deputy mayors in councils controlled by the IFP to resign. It appears this was in response to the IFP’s failure to vote for Amad in Joburg. In other words, the EFF is now removing the IFP from power in up to 13 municipalities.
This is a stark example of how powerless residents are in these situations. Because of events in other places, the party, or person, who governs them could now get the chop.
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The fragility of the entire system
Thirteen councils in KZN could now change hands because of events in Joburg. Of course, this is not the first time this has happened, but it still underscores how fragile the entire system is.
The new Joburg mayor does not have a strong constituency and will have to do the bidding of other parties, not the people who elected him. This is exactly what happened in Nelson Mandela Bay after 2016, where the UDM’s Mongameli Bobani was kept in power as mayor by the ANC, while his party was a minuscule minority.
Meanwhile, there is the relationship which, for the moment, is underpinning all of this: that between the ANC and the EFF.
While they may be getting closer towards some agreement, there are still complicated issues to sort out.
It was Herman Mashaba who claimed that after the 2021 local elections, he convinced the EFF to vote for DA speakers and mayors in Joburg and Ekurhuleni. That was not long ago. So, what has changed since then that would now allow the ANC to work with the EFF?
Also, it was as recently as 2022 that talks in Joburg and Ekurhuleni between the ANC and EFF failed to reach an agreement. While negotiations are generally meant to make progress, it is hard to understand what has changed since those negotiations and now.
There are other problems to consider.
If Malema is prepared to deal with the ANC, how far will he go? While these negotiations around various metros are under way, just this weekend he claimed that the ANC was “on a path to completely destroy South Africa” through load shedding.
A few weeks ago the EFF lodged its own court application to force Parliament to change its decision not to proceed with an investigation into the Phala Phala farm robbery scandal.
If the EFF were to do a deal with the ANC, what would happen in Parliament? Would it really be able to serve in a coalition with the ANC while continuing to attack the ruling party, particularly President Cyril Ramaphosa?
At the same time, Ramaphosa now appears stronger in the ANC than ever before, with the list of people elected to serve on the National Working Committee confirming that. (Ramaphosa was also in charge of the process that ultimately expelled Malema from the ANC.)
It is unlikely that the ANC would take a decision to work with a party against the wishes of its leader. And would Ramaphosa really sign off on it?
Then there’s the electoral politics of the 2024 elections, which are now galloping towards us.
When the DA lost support in Gauteng in the 2019 elections, one of the reasons put forward for this was that some voters believed its Joburg mayor at the time, Herman Mashaba, had been too close to the EFF. This suggests that parties have to be very careful of who they are seen working with.
Thus, it is entirely possible that both the ANC and the EFF could lose support through working together.
For the ANC, it is likely that among its more reliable voters are older people, perhaps many who live in rural areas. They are unlikely to be pleased by the approach of the EFF.
Complete and utter change
Meanwhile, many of the EFF’s voters are younger people who want complete and utter change in South Africa. The EFF claims to be a revolutionary party, dedicated to uprooting the status quo. It is hard to see how it could continue to claim that while working with the governing party it has railed against for so many years — both parties may need to consider their next steps very carefully. While there may be a short-term gain in some metros, there is also a lot to lose.
This leads to a bigger question: Where is the principle in all of this? The answer is obvious.
There is none.
The ANC claims to be trying to govern better but will negotiate with a party that wants to overthrow the government. The EFF wants to overthrow the government but now gives the impression of being perfectly happy to work with the party in control of that government.
The voters may simply ignore them both, and voter turnout could be lowered again.
Next year’s elections may also explain some of the DA’s decisions in the last few weeks.
While many have blamed it for the collapse of the coalition in Joburg, the DA has said that it could no longer work with Gayton McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance. It says the PA had left the coalition, then asked to return and to be given more seats than it had had before on the metro’s mayoral committee.
For many, this is an intolerable sign of betrayal.
What undermines this argument is that the PA claims the DA was offering deals up until the last minute, and the fact that the DA went into a coalition with the PA in the first place. The PA has been explicit in its approach, saying many times it will go to whoever gives it the most.
This makes it difficult to work with them in the longer term, as there will always be someone more desperate for power.
However, the DA may now be trying to focus more on the long term, and be more aware of the dangers of short-term decisions when it comes to national and provincial elections.
As always in our politics, it is difficult to predict the future. But for both the ANC and the EFF, to sign a deal with the other may be a difficult Rubicon to cross.
And while those wishing for stability may believe it’s currently the only option, it could lead to more instability. The two parties’ relationship has always been incredibly difficult and is likely to remain so.
In the meantime, life in our councils and metros is unlikely to improve. DM