Cape Town – The ANC has dismissed the federal chairperson of the Democratic Alliance (DA) Helen Zille’s claims that the new government setup is merely a coalition between the DA and ANC, rather than a Government of National Unity (GNU).
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula criticised Zille’s comments as distractions, urging the party to focus on its work and not be sidetracked by opposition criticisms.
“Stop being irritated by Zille every time she says she wants to see the ANC dead. It wouldn’t have stopped even if there was no GNU, the DA and others are not going to stop.
[WATCH] We are not going to entertain Helen Zille and what she is dreaming about. We have a responsibility as the GNU to govern. #ANCNEC#LetsDoMoreTogether pic.twitter.com/uD8JaKBkrW
— ANC SECRETARY GENERAL | Fikile Mbalula (@MbalulaFikile) August 1, 2024
“The DA, like others who want to see the ANC gone, say they eat the elephant piece by piece, but the elephant is still standing and the ANC will go down if it entertains the irritation and doesn’t do what is right,” Times Live quoted Mbalula as saying.
He said that the GNU is not about merging party identities but about effective governance, despite inherent contradictions.
In a now viral video, Zille claimed that the coalition between the DA and ANC was a straightforward coalition from the start, rather than a GNU, which would include a broader range of parties like the EFF and MK Party.
She argued that the GNU label was used by President Cyril Ramaphosa to present the coalition more favourably.
Helen Zille (DA):
Cyril Ramaphosa came up with the government of national unity (GNU), to sell the coalition to the ANC
The truth is that the DA is in a coalition with the ANC. pic.twitter.com/rU5z2UZQsl
— Izwe Lethu (@LandNoli) August 1, 2024
“So from the beginning Cyril Ramaphosa came up with this notion of a Government of National Unity, which he thought would be a better way of selling the concept of a coalition to his own party.
“Now… it’s not a Government of National Unity because a Government of National Unity brings all the parties together that would include the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) and MK Party (Umkhonto Wesizwe Party), which it did not.
“But it still gave the president the fig leaf he needed to bring in all sorts of smaller parties to say ‘I’m not in a coalition with the DA’.
“Now the truth is that we (DA and ANC) are actually in a coalition because a coalition means that if a party withdraws from the coalition that the party falls,” Zille said.
She said that if a party withdraws from the coalition, it would collapse, underscoring that the DA and ANC are indeed in a coalition.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
