Does ActionSA want Gauteng coalitions to fail? The perplexing politics of Herman Mashaba

When ActionSA recently launched a branch in the Western Cape, Herman Mashaba declared that his goal is to bring the DA under 50% in that province. A startling mission statement, especially for a party whose unique selling proposition is its ability to win votes from the ANC, and break its stranglehold on politics. 

As far as ending the ANC’s dominance and building an alternative in its place, the Western Cape is conquered territory. It is the one province in the country that works, not just for the well-off, but especially the poor who rely most on a competent and caring government. At the very least the Western Cape is where we want the rest of the country to be.  

So, why would anyone who is interested in a post-ANC South Africa want to trade in a DA majority government in the Western Cape for the instability and uncertainty of coalitions?

What benefit could ActionSA possibly bring to the cabinet of the Western Cape or the mayoral committee in Cape Town? Will they help the devolution of policing functions, or to obtain more clean audits?  

Come to think of it, what benefit has ActionSA brought to the municipalities where they did win votes and seats in the 2021 local government election? What key successes can ActionSA point to, and say: but for our involvement, this would never have happened?  

In Johannesburg, Mashaba lost interest in the success of the multiparty coalition government the day that he realised he wouldn’t be returned as the mayor. His only remaining interest has been to blame the setbacks of the coalition on the DA. 

Read in Daily Maverick: “Western Cape coalitions hold steady despite council rupture in City of Joburg”

Waging a low-level election campaign against your own coalition partner, even in peacetime, has implications of its own. What happens to the trust and collegiality inside these mayoral committees? What message is sent to the (often ANC-aligned) municipal officials who are meant to implement the mandate of the voters?  

Whether it was sabotaging the appointment of Johann Mettler, an exemplary, apolitical civil servant, as the municipal manager of Johannesburg, or blocking Tshwane mayor Randall Williams from leasing out the city’s mothballed power stations to independent power producers, ActionSA seems to be billing itself as an opposition inside coalition governments. In this sense it shares a key strategic objective with the ANC: they want DA mayors to fail, even if that means collapsing the Gauteng coalitions.

In September 2022 it was Mashaba’s key lieutenant, Michael Beaumont, who insisted on a renegotiation of the Joburg coalition to include an IFP speaker (a position the IFP did not want), which then opened the door to further demands for further restructuring to give more jobs to the Patriotic Alliance and other parties.  

Beaumont’s intercession came just after Cope’s Colleen Makhubele turned on the multiparty coalition, and several of the smaller parties voted with Makhubele to remove the DA’s Vasco da Gama as speaker. This was followed by the unlawful removal of the DA’s Mpho Phalatse as mayor of Johannesburg. 

So the dominos fell one by one. And it was started by ActionSA’s bizarre campaign to replace the DA speaker against the provisions of the coalition agreement the party had signed only six months before.

Read in Daily Maverick: “High court declares Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse’s removal unconstitutional and invalid”

For sticking to the provisions of the coalition agreement, and refusing to cave to the Patriotic Alliance’s demands, the DA was accused of “arrogance”. Again, ActionSA led the charge, and provided covering fire for the Patriotic Alliance to clinch a deal with the ANC.  

Then, while Mashaba was abroad and the DA was fighting in court to have Phalatse restored as mayor (and the coalition government reinstated in Joburg), another Mashaba lieutenant, Bongani Baloyi, started negotiating with the ANC as a possible coalition partner in Gauteng.  

Baloyi’s move was a direct challenge to Mashaba’s authority. Over and over Mashaba has vowed not to cooperate with the ANC, even as he has consistently championed a coalition with the EFF. It also signalled that ActionSA was ready to give up the multiparty coalition agreement, in exchange for a possible agreement with the ANC.