Steenhuisen: DA won’t hand mayoral chain to Mashaba
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen says the party won’t be held hostage by ActionSA during any potential coalition talks in Johannesburg.
But the party, who is leading the vote along with the ANC, is open to talks with its former member and leader of ActionSA Herman Mashaba.
“In terms of ActionSA, we will be happy to talk to them,” Steenhuisen said at the IEC’s national results centre in Tshwane on Wednesday.
“They promised people they were going to get 40% in Tshwane and 30-something percent in Joburg, they will end up at around 16% and we gonna end up at 30%. It would be odd to have a mayor from a smaller party there. We are happy to talk about Mayco seats, we are happy to talk about sharing portfolios, but it would be very difficult as the lead party to hand over the mayoral position.”
Discussions around possible coalitions have begun among the various political parties as the number of hung councils become clear.
While the DA is open to working with most parties, it has ruled out the possibility of a coalition with the EFF.
“I don’t want to go into unstable coalitions. The situation we had in Tshwane a the past five years has been incredibly difficult,” said Steenhuisen.
“Running a minority government and living between council meetings is very difficult to do so. I’ll be looking at creating stable solid coalitions that will be able to go the distance and not fall apart from one council meeting to the next.”
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