Maimane: Too soon to talk about coalitions
"[Establishing] coalitions prior to an election is almost a sin to speak about," he told the American Chamber of Commerce in SA on Monday.
"Quite frankly we have to win and we have to win well."
Maimane was answering questions during a question and answer session following his address to the chamber.
He said he believed South Africa's future was going to function on coalitions, however the DA had a number of guiding principles other parties had to agree to upfront, if they wanted to enter one.
Guiding principles
The first was that it must agree on a market-based economy.
This already excluded parties such as the Economic Freedom Fighters who were focused on nationalisation.
The second was that parties had to agree on a non-racial party.
"There are still parties who believe in racial mobilisation," he said.
The DA did also not believe in cadre deployment and any party entering into a coalition with it needed to agree on professionalising the state.
The four criteria were addressing historical injustices, Maimane said.
Elections
Speaking about next year's local government elections, he said the DA was focused on winning Nelson Mandela Bay.
The metro will be hotly contested with the DA and EFF working towards taking the metro out of the ANC's control.
The ANC has had to put its focus on fixing instability within its ranks in the region.
The party's top officials will be visiting Nelson Mandela Bay on Monday.
Speculation
Last month, President Jacob Zuma and his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa were in Port Elizabeth with other officials.
At the time speculation was rife that they were there to axe the municipality’s mayor, 83-year-old Benson Fihla.
However, at a press conference the ANC announced that there would be no reshuffling of Nelson Mandela Bay political deployments.
At the time, ANC national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said Zuma had travelled to Nelson Mandela Bay to review the work of a 31-person task team that had been established to rebuild ANC structures in the region following the disbanding of the Regional Executive Committee last year December.
Author: News24
NewsWire ID: 3576
File photo: Gallo images