Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters would be Jacob Zuma’s first choice of a coalition partner in KwaZulu-Natal.
Pre-election polls predicted Zuma’s Umkhonto Wesizwe party could get as much as 25% of the KZN vote, while the EFF could get 10%.
With over 30% of the votes in the bag, Zuma and Malema could upset both the ANC and IFP, who are the leading contenders in the province.
Malema’s party has been growing steadily in KZN, securing 363,000 votes in the 2019 elections and 442,000 in 2021.
On Tuesday, EFF secretary general Marshall Dlamini, who is also the EFF premier candidate for KZN, said The Fighters planned to drive such a hard bargain this year that they would get some ministerial seats in the government.
“If the EFF does not emerge victorious, I can assure you that no one will win this province.
“Based on the work that our fighters have put in on the ground, we will be part of the government in KZN,” said Dlamini.
The EFF is currently in a rocky marriage with the ANC in KZN municipalities, in Gauteng’s Ekurhuleni metro and the City of Johannesburg.
In KZN, the EFF was so determined to remove the ANC from power after the municipal elections that it chose to work with the IFP in over a dozen hung municipalities.
Both Zuma and Malema lead parties that broke away from the ANC and are sworn to destroy both the ANC and its president Cyril Ramaphosa.
As chairperson of the ANC disciplinary desk back in 2012, Ramaphosa expelled Malema from the ANC and forced Zuma out, resulting in the formation of the MK party.
Other coalition scenarios in a post-election KZN are as follows:
- ANC and IFP coalition – Recently thought to be highly unlikely, but last week, the IFP and the ANC ganged up on Abantu Botho Congress president Phumlani PG Mavundla and voted him out of the position of mayor of the Umvoti local municipality (Greytown). Mavundla was reinstated this week by the Pietermaritzburg High Court – but the vultures are still circling.
- IFP and MK – IFP president Velenkosi Hlabisa has stated countless times that they have no problem with forming a coalition with Zuma in KZN. The party is already in the DA-led Multi-Party Charter for SA with the FF Plus and ActionSA, but is prepared to share power with the ANC in Umvoti.
- ANC and EFF – A big possibility but a very complex bargain as the EFF wants seats in the provincial government. Other ANC and EFF coalitions are barely holding in Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg. Malema is also on the record saying that he’d demand seats in the national cabinet as well.
- ANC and DA – Perhaps the best alliance for stable governance. DA leader John Steenhuisen has indicated that the party would consider an alliance with the ANC to avoid a “disastrous doomsday coalition” of the ANC and the EFF.
- ANC and MK – Highly unlikely.
Pictured above: Zuma and Malema are overjoyed to cast their votes.
Source: X
