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‘We had to attack first to defend the party,’ says ActionSA’s Mashaba on Tshwane

14 Oct 2024

ActionSA is one of two parties in Parliament that have not joined either the GNU or the ‘Progressive Caucus’ and believes it has a crucial role to play in holding the government accountable.

With the majority of parties in Parliament in the Government of National Unity (GNU), or the Progressive Caucus, ActionSA says it plans to serve as a strong opposition despite its limited size.

On Monday, 14 October 2024, ActionSA caucus leader Athol Trollip said: “ActionSA committed to South Africans that we would occupy the opposition void and hold our position as the rational centre, where, despite our relative size, we intended to punch above our weight and serve the South African people as a constructive opposition in a way that ensures our presence is felt.”

The party’s parliamentary caucus was holding its inaugural media briefing in Cape Town.

In the 2024 national elections, ActionSA received 413,239 votes, or 1.2% of the vote share, which translated to six seats in Parliament.

Key takeaways from the briefing:

‘The super six’

Several times during the briefing, the six ActionSA MPs were referred to as the “super six”.

Trollip said, “We came to Parliament with six members, which is less than what we expected, but more than what many other political parties that have been around for 30 years have in Parliament.”

Trollip said this was “somewhat” disappointing.

“But what hasn’t been disappointing is the calibre of colleagues that I served with in Parliament.”

Trollip described his team as “professional” and “passionate”. Thus far, the party is represented on every committee and as Trollip said, it supported 26 budget votes while it made 15 “principled objections” to budget votes.

Building an effective opposition

ActionSA is one of two parties that have not joined either the GNU or the Progressive Caucus. The other party is the African Christian Democratic Party.

On Monday, Trollip said, “We promised to be a constructive opposition and I believe that we fulfilled that promise to date… We also occupy a really important rational centre in Parliament.”

Trollip said there was a government in place that had “nearly 70% control of Parliament, which is a massive block” that could “easily abuse their powers in Parliament”.

“And in opposition, we have a new political party that doesn’t appear to have any strategic direction other than opposing their former colleagues,” he said in reference to the emergence of the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party as the country’s third biggest party and official opposition.

Read more: Zuma’s MK Party unveils constitution that permits dual membership in ‘strategic’ cases

Trollip continued: “We have the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) that has been around for 10 years but seems to have lost some of its direction.”

He claimed that the Progressive Caucus masquerades “as the Progressive Caucus with other members from other political parties when in actual fact, they are more like a regressive caucus”.

This group is made up of parties such as the EFF and MK, as explained by Daily Maverick’s Queenin Masuabi.

“So our position in between those two blocks is a really important position and something that we believe South Africa needs at every opportunity,” said Trollip.

“We’ve utilised every available parliamentary mechanism to ensure that the voices, concerns and aspirations of ordinary South Africans are amplified in Parliament,” he said.

Targeting Simelane

The party touched on its case against embattled Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Tembi Simelane, who faces a string of allegations against her due to a “loan” she received from the VBS bank, as exposed by Daily Maverick and News24.

Read more: VBS scandal

Thus far, ActionSA said it had written to the Presidency and the Public Protector over Simelane’s VBS “loan”, which occurred during her tenure as Polokwane mayor.

The party also laid criminal charges in Limpopo against Simelane. ActionSA’s Malebo Kobe laid the charges and in the media briefing on Monday said the Hawks had been in contact to confirm they were investigating the matter.

Trollip said that on Thursday, 17 October, during a question and answer session with President Cyril Ramaphosa in Parliament, he would bring up what was being done about the situation, which he said had so far been met with “radio silence”.

City of Tshwane

But perhaps Monday’s biggest focal point was the City of Tshwane, which is now run by ActionSA’s Dr Nasiphi Moya, who was voted into office as mayor last week. She was sworn in after ActionSA abandoned its coalition with the Democratic Alliance (DA) and partnered with the ANC, with the support of the EFF.

The DA wanted its ousted mayor Cilliers Brink to return to office, which was denied by both ActionSA and the ANC.

During the briefing, Tshwane came up via party president Herman Mashaba: “We are now leading the capital city of this country.”

He said the turnaround of the capital was “very important”.

Read more: ActionSA’s Tshwane mayor Nasiphi Moya commits to stability in metro her party calls ‘effectively bankrupt’

In its public fallout with the DA, ActionSA said the party had neglected Tshwane’s poorer areas while the DA accused ActionSA of sacrificing its values for power.

“It’s unfortunate what really happened, but we had to do everything in our power… We have the constitutional right to defend ourselves – and that’s exactly what we did,” said Mashaba.

He said he was a firm believer in that if there was a threat to “destroy” the party, it had to attack first, “and that’s exactly what we did”. He didn’t describe where the threat to destroy ActionSA came from.

“And here we are, we landed. We’ve ended up being the leader of a coalition government in the City of Tshwane, something that I never planned, but it happened and we had to protect ourselves,” said Mashaba.

The party leader said ActionSA would now focus on Gauteng municipalities where it could be a kingmaker, such as Johannesburg, and look at how it could play a role in that municipality’s turnaround.

Read more: Second time lucky as ANC’s Dada Morero elected as new Joburg mayor

Mashaba then asked why there seemed to be a “double standard” when it came to the removal of Brink in comparison with axed Johannesburg mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse.

He claimed Brink received “special treatment” when the DA tried to save his mayoralty by negotiating widely to form a coalition and claimed it failed to do the same to protect Phalatse. The DA has said the circumstances in Johannesburg and Tshwane were “totally different” and Phalatse has said she felt undermined by ActionSA, which it has denied.

“Please, let’s not have double standards when Johannesburg was collapsing,” said Mashaba.

He added: “Honestly, we never experienced the level of attacks and insults we received when we wanted to defend ourselves in Tshwane.”

‘Honey and stick’

During the briefing, Trollip described the space that ActionSA occupied as a fulcrum: “A fulcrum, if I can explain it best, is like a seesaw. A seesaw only works if there’s a fulcrum in the middle and I believe that we can occupy that space… It doesn’t matter that we are only six people. I’ve already experienced that we have had an impact in Parliament.”

“So I have no doubt that the six of us will make a difference… And if you use every lever to influence people by encouraging them to do the right thing and if they don’t do the right thing, you expose them for their reluctance to do the right thing.”

The veteran politician added: “We’re going to use honey and the stick to get MPs to do the right thing and I believe we can be successful with that.” DM

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