The ANC-led Government of National Unity (GNU) has started showing signs of crumbling after one of its member parties, the Patriotic Alliance (PA), issued a scathing warning to the DA.
The ANC, DA and IFP last week formed a GNU, which was later joined by the PA, the GOOD Party and the PAC.
The parties all failed to gain an outright majority during the May 29 elections, forcing them to work together in the ANC-led GNU.
The PA has come out guns blazing saying that DA federal council chairperson Helen Zille was using “mad bully tactics” to get her way within the GNU.
This after Zille appeared on national television on Tuesday and said that members of the PA should not expect to be part of the Cabinet without the DA being consulted by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa is expected to name members of his Cabinet within days of his swearing-in that will take place at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Wednesday.
Zille said in her remarks: “We have to be consulted about it and in fact clause 17 (of the GNU agreement) says whilst recognising the prerogative to appoint members of the executive, such appointments should be done in consultation with the leaders of the respective parties of the members considered for appointment.
“So you can’t just let anybody come in without consulting with us and then he makes the appointments in consultation with the leaders of the parties who have been accepted for admission into the GNU…The ANC can’t bring in people that they feel like bringing in,” Zille said.
However, in responding to Zille in a statement on Wednesday morning, PA secretary-general Chinelle Stevens rejected Zille’s assertions, saying the party was not shocked by her utterances because it has always been “her way or the way”.
“Her utterances show that she clearly believes she must have signed an agreement with the ANC that means the ANC must now do the DA’s bidding ... She intends to ‘complain’ about not being ‘consulted’ enough, despite the ANC having made it clear that they invited the PA and other parties into the GNU long before signing any document with the DA.
“What Helen Zille clearly fails to grasp is that the PA also signed a statement of intent to form part of the GNU on the same day the DA did – and there can be no possible reason for the ANC to have to ask for the DA’s permission to include willing parties in a grand coalition that can govern the country with or without the DA. The GNU is still in the process of being constituted. Until it is, Helen Zille does not need to be ‘consulted’.
“We will all happily listen to her opinions later, once it is, and no doubt she will provide them. It was and remains the ANC’s decision to invite all parties to join its GNU,” she said.
Stevens said the DA had decided to be part of the GNU, but Zille now wanted to act as though the DA had the right to be the gatekeeper for the ANC.
The Star