‘They failed spectacularly’: DA declares the ANC’s death in KZN
· Citizen
The leader of the DA in KwaZulu-Natal, Francois Rogers, says the ANC in that province has “died”.
Visit syntagm.co.za for more information.
Rogers is the MEC of Finance in KZN and is part of the ANC-IFP coalition in that province.
He was speaking on Sunday at the DA national congress in Johannesburg, where the party is expected to elect new leadership.
“The age of one-party dominance is over, the ANC is dead, not because it ended gracefully, but because it failed spectacularly. It has failed across every sphere of government, and it is now failing in our municipalities.
“It failed millions of South Africans who were promised delivery but instead got decay,” he said.
ALSO READ: DA congress declines proposal to elect deputy federal leader
Coalition politics
Rogers said coalition politics are the future of South Africa because voters have decided they will no longer give any political party a blank cheque to govern.
“Here are the truth coalitions only work if they are built on principle, they must be built on delivery and not political deals, they must be built on accountability and not silence,” he said.
Hung municipalities
He said after the 2021 local government elections, a number of municipalities were hung. He said the province went into service delivery agreements with them as part of efforts to ensure residents are not negatively affected by the outcome of the elections.
“We proved that a party does not have to be a majority to be able to bring about change. What does collapse municipalities is corruption incompetence and leaders who fear the scrutiny of voters more than failure.
“Let us be honest, in KwaZulu-Natal, those broken municipalities are now suddenly afraid of the Democratic Alliance because the Democratic Alliance exposes them.
“We have exposed inflated contracts, we have exposed empty bank accounts, and we have exposed the lie that things take time to change,” he said.
Clashes in the government of provincial unity
Rogers said it has not been easy for the DA to expose corruption in government departments in KZN while being in the same coalition with the ANC.
“The decision to place the KwaZulu-Natal department of Education under sections 18 of the PFMA, which is a Treasury intervention, did not go down well at all.
“In fact, it nearly collapsed the government of provincial unity, but as the DA, we chose principle over expedience,” he said.
Attempts to save the ANC in KZN
The ANC’s mother body has been at pains trying to revive the party’s support in that province after they suffered a disappointing 17% defeat at the provincial elections in 2024.
Their mother body has since dislodged their structures there and appointed a provincial task team to help rebuild branches in the province.
On Sunday, there were reports that the ANC’s National Working Committee (NWC) will discuss the possible removal of ANC heavyweight Jeff Radebe as the convenor of the provincial task team. According to the Sunday Times there is a view that he has failed to deal with the challenges he was expected to address in KZN.
The paper also reported that there could be further changes to the entire PTT.
ALSO READ: Hill-Lewis’ rise through the DA ranks