DA will not govern with gun against its head, vows Steenhuisen

Steenhuisen and the party’s newly elected mayors from metros and municipalities across South Africa briefed the media on Friday to outline their governance plans for the next five years.

The party has mayors in 27 municipalities, including four of South Africa’s eight metros, following the recent local government elections.

But he warned the new mayors will not govern with a gun against their heads.

“What we want to try and do, where we can, is to turn those minority governments into majority governments. In a place like Johannesburg, we have already started reaching out and talking to other parties that we believe can come inboard to form a majority.

“Our first job is meeting with other parties whom we believe we can come together around the same set of values and objectives, why do we want to do that? Firstly, we want stability, we want to get a majority government that doesn’t have to dance to the tune of whichever person wants to play for the tune.

Where we can’t we will try and run those governments but we are not going to govern with a gun against our heads.”

Steenhuisen again vowed the DA will not compromise on its principles.

“I also want to assure our co-governing parties that we will do all we can to foster a productive and mutually respectful environment. We owe it to the millions of residents in these cities and towns, and to every voter who made it possible to remove the ANC there, to prove that multi-party democracy works for them.

“We have to find ways to still remain firm and true to our principles while building and maintaining bridges with council colleagues from other parties. Nowhere is this more important than in the minority governments - and particularly the Gauteng metros - where we are going to have to write a whole new chapter on selfless and cooperative public service.”

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