Illustrative image, from left: Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero. (Photo: Sharon Seretlo / Gallo Images) | ActionSA President Herman Mashaba. (Photo: Luba Lesolle / Gallo Images) | Illustration: Felix Dlangamandla 
On Wednesday, as a result of support from the ANC and other parties, ActionSA’s Nobuhle Mthembu was elected as Speaker of the Johannesburg City Council.
This follows the vote last week in which ActionSA, the EFF and others elected the ANC’s Dada Morero as mayor of the city. Insofar as is known, this was the first time ActionSA had worked with the ANC in any assembly.
This follows Mashaba pinky-swearing many, many, many times that he would never, ever work with the ANC.
Over the years he has been arguably more insulting and more critical of the ANC than Floyd Shivambu has been of former president Jacob Zuma.
He has also stated repeatedly that his main aim in getting into politics was to remove the ANC from power. That he has turned his back on that promise is immensely revealing of his character as a politician and also of the situation in which he finds himself.
Immediately after the elections, during the weeks when the number of parties negotiating with the ANC to join the national government appeared to grow every day, Mashaba was resolute.
Even though parties as diverse as the PAC, the FF+, the DA and Rise Mzansi were working together, he refused to participate.
This new decision to work with the ANC in Joburg may be an admission that he made the wrong choice.
Mashaba has found himself out of power and unable to direct or control the public narrative. Like Bosa and several others, his party is too small to make an impact in Parliament and too powerless in other forums to make much of an impression.
In many ways, he has himself to blame for this.
While an often repeated promise can be satisfying to make and attractive to voters, our politics has changed. It is very difficult for any politician or party to make promises about who they will or will not work with.
So broad is the current national coalition that all bets on future combinations are off.
The fact that DA leader John Steenhuisen sometimes claimed he would never work with the ANC and at other times offered to work with them is an example of what could be called strategic ambiguity.
As frustrating as it has been for some voters (and the media…), it did mean the DA had its options open.
Failing to lead from the front
Getting back to Mashaba, after the election, he announced that he would not represent the party in Parliament and that the ActionSA caucus (of six seats) would be led by the DA’s former parliamentary leader Athol Trollip. Mashaba said he was doing this to focus on building the party.
While Trollip is an astute and experienced politician, Mashaba is the leader of the party and could be accused of failing to lead from the front.
This is the second time Mashaba has done this.
In 2021 he campaigned to be the mayor of Joburg as the first candidate for ActionSA. After being elected back into the council (where he was previously a mayor for the DA) he resigned just a few months into his term.
Again, the reason given was that he needed to concentrate on building the party.
At what point will Mashaba represent the people who have elected him?
He has laid himself open to the accusation that he finds Parliament boring and even beneath him.
Then there is the curious incident of his biography.
It was written by Prince Mashele, who claimed at the time that while he had access to Mashaba, it was all his own words and Mashaba had no control over the book.
In fact, Mashaba had paid Mashele R12-million to write it.
(Disclosure: This writer was asked by Mashele to provide a quote for the book cover, which he did. This writer also chaired its launch at the Wits School of Governance. At no time did Mashele or Mashaba disclose that Mashaba had paid for it).
As was much discussed at the time, this is a huge amount of money to pay for the authorship of a single book — especially one that was never going to recoup anything like that sum. For someone who claims to be good with money, it was a strange investment.
Elective conference
Mashaba’s other problem is in building his party.
ActionSA has never held an elective conference. While it does have a senate and has held a policy conference (unlike at least one other party…) the party has never held a leadership election.
Mashaba has promised that it will hold such a conference soon (the original promise was to hold it after the election), but until such a gathering, it is difficult to assess whether it can form durable structures.
At the same time, there are likely to be questions about whether ActionSA can grow its constituency.
Its closest rivals appear to be Bosa (still outside the national coalition) and Rise Mzansi (which is in the coalition). These three parties have strong urban bases and are trying to appeal to people who have voted for the ANC and the DA.
Almost immediately after the election, there was at least one public suggestion that the three merge into one party. But, such are the personalities involved that this seems unlikely.
All of this makes Mashaba’s decision to now work with the ANC very curious.
He does not appear to be getting much in return and at his request his party is not represented on Johannesburg’s Mayoral Committee.
The real aim may be to try to use Joburg and the position of speaker to help drive the party’s narrative.
However, this is unlikely to work. While local government was often the driver of political trends in the past, so interesting and novel is the national coalition that attention is likely to remain focused on Parliament for some time to come.
In the end, this may mean that Mashaba’s decision to work with the ANC reduces his options. DM