This strategy may also turn out to be dangerous, not just for voters but for the parties themselves, as they could end up giving executive power to people over whom they have limited or no control. In the long term, this could be a political recipe for disaster.

On Sunday, while speaking in the Free State, Malema told EFF members that he believed the party would win five positions on the mayoral committee in Ekurhuleni. He said this would go with the two positions it has in Joburg.

He said they would follow the strategy already applied in Joburg, where the EFF and the ANC both backed a member of a minority party for the position of mayor. 

As reported by News24, Malema said: “Here, in the Free State, we are negotiating with the Metsimaholo Local Municipality because there we can also go in, but we refuse to go in under the ANC, so we came up with a new strategy now that we would rather have a small-party mayor because we can’t have each other and serve under each other.”

Meanwhile, on Monday morning the leader of the KwaZulu-Natal ANC, Siboniso Duma, told SAfm: “We have started a process at the level of the leadership of the EFF” in eThekwini.

This followed a no-confidence vote in eThekwini on Friday where the ANC’s mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, survived with the support of the EFF.

All of this now suggests that the two parties are coming closer together in various provinces across the country.

But many questions remain. 

For example, while Malema was spelling out this plan, he also confirmed that the EFF would try to disrupt ANC leader President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address on Thursday evening. 

This again underscores the tension around this dynamic, around how the EFF can be trying to overthrow the state while working with the ruling party, and how the ANC can even think of working with a party wanting to remove its leader.

There are many other curiosities around this.

For example, if the EFF does get five positions on the Ekurhuleni mayoral committee and retains its two positions on the mayoral committee in Joburg, then it would have roughly the same number of seats divided between the two councils as the ANC.

And yet the ANC has a vastly greater number of council seats in the two metros and won many many more votes. In Joburg, it won more than 33% of the vote, while the EFF won 10.63%. In Ekurhuleni, it won 38% compared with the EFF’s 13.47%.  

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

Desperate for power

There appears to be no connection between the number of votes and the positions and the power that the two parties are receiving.

For the ANC’s critics, this might well reveal how desperate it is for power, how it will give equal power to a smaller party, just for a seat at the table. 

But it certainly demonstrates how it almost does not matter how many votes you get — as long as you are able to be included, you will have significant power. 

This must be less than democratic: surely the more votes a party receives, the more power it should have. When parties themselves give up that principle, voters may well see them as not worthy of trust.

Then there is the issue of using a minority-party mayor. This is clearly because both the EFF and the ANC do not want to serve under each other.

But this strategy is incredibly risky.

First, the new mayor of Joburg, Al Jama-ah’s Thapelo Amad, is already the butt of many jokes on social media, and he does indeed appear to be someone who cannot be taken seriously, even by the members of his own coalition. The ANC referred to him as a “transitional mayor”.

This suggests that voters — and anyone paying any attention — understand that he does not have political power. 

But it can sometimes be forgotten that in law, mayors do have important powers. And they can be much harder to remove than it may appear.

While the EFF has been making public statements about the future of Ekurhuleni, it cannot remove the DA’s Tania Campbell as mayor until April. This is because of council rules that forbid parties from bringing no-confidence motions against mayors too often.

It is entirely possible that a mayor from a minority party elected into office by the EFF and the ANC simply refuses to toe their line. For example, the mayor appoints a mayoral committee — what would happen if the two parties elect a mayor, but he simply refuses to appoint their members to the mayoral committee? It could be some time before a no-confidence vote could be held.

Such a mayor may also decide they have had enough of the ridicule and resign at a very inconvenient time, to put pressure on the bigger parties.

Considering that mayors in this position will be aware that this is the only time in their lives that they will hold significant political power, the temptation to abuse it will be massive. They will have nothing to lose.

Also, someone in a mayoral position could spot a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a name for themselves. One could easily imagine such a person gathering evidence of alleged corruption by members of the mayoral committee and their parties, and then blowing the whistle at the right time.

Such a move could set one up with a political career for life.

The point is, while it may seem as if the ANC and the EFF have control over a mayor from a minority party, they are still giving significant legal power to someone who could turn out to be uncontrollable.

There are other problems too. Considering the personal enmity between the leaders of the ANC and the EFF, and the fact that they say they are following different agendas, small disputes between them could become massive fights.

Even the DA and ActionSA, two parties with roughly the same political agendas, have found it difficult to work together. They also faced the problem of needing to differentiate themselves, create identities distinct from each other and appeal to a particular group of voters. 

As next year’s election comes closer, some in the ANC and some in the EFF will be looking to pick fights, to send signals to voters.

This has the potential to end in a massive meltdown in a council meeting, with councillors of the two parties, in the same coalition, arguing with each other live on TV.

This could cost both parties votes in the longer run.

Of course, it may not turn out this way.

If the national leaderships of the ANC and the EFF believe they are able to work together in provincial and national government, perhaps they could use this period to generate trust between them. If they are able to foster a culture of the two parties working together in local government, it will be easier for them to work together in provincial government after next year’s elections.

This then could turn out to be an important moment, and a chance for them to learn powerful lessons.

If they were able to turn this period into such a moment, and improved services for the majority of local residents, it could easily lead to a more sustained coalition that could win votes.

But, for the moment, most residents are cynical about it turning out that way. DM