The Democratic Alliance is hoping President Cyril Ramaphosa will act against Gauteng Premier and provincial ANC chairperson Panyaza Lesufi whom it believes is frustrating efforts to establish a Government of Provincial Unity following the establishment of a national coalition which saw some of the DA’s leaders appointed into cabinet positions.
DA veteran and former Chief Whip Douglas Gibson spoke to television news channel Newzroom Afrika after yet another last-minute cancellation of an announcement of cabinet by the Premier who is understood to be refusing to accede to DA demands.
Gibson said failure to reach a deal in Gauteng will not affect the already existing Government of National Unity and that if anything the DA expects President Cyril Ramaphosa to discipline Lesufi whom the party believes is being wayward and greedy in his refusal to give the DA the number of MEC positions it is demanding.
“The national government has set the tone and the example and I’m quite sure that if Mr Lesufi is unreasonable the DA won’t agree with him and if he’s unreasonable president Ramaphosa will take out the whip,” said Gibson.
Gibson said Lesufi could not insist on having his way when he did not win an outright majority in the elections.
“Premier Panyaza Lesufi forgets that he’s the Premier only because the DA voted for him. Secondly, he’s in the first stage of grief which is denial that the voters rejected him and his party because they were unsatisfactory as the rulers of Gauteng over the last few things. The third thing is that he’s got 28 seats, and the DA has got 22 so he must not now get greedy and want to grab far more than he’s entitled to. The DA really wants to make Gauteng work and really want to make Lesufi look good for a change”, he said.
Lesufi was elected unopposed to the Premier post and voted in by among others the DA having been nominated by his own party ANC with the MK party surprisingly rising to second his nomination.The ANC in Gauteng has hit back saying Lesufi would not backtrack on his decision to reject the DA’s demand for four of the eleven MEC positions and that he could proceed to constitute a team without them.“With or without the DA we believe in Gauteng we will be able to form a government, but we are saying it with utmost respect. We’ve all given all parties respect including a party with one seat to say we are moving forward because we’ve seen what the president of the ANC and the country would have done and we think that the ANC in its wisdom in respecting the voters of this country its doing that but we must be able to say that coalitions or this government of provincial unity, where you are leading in fact in Gauteng we are leading this provincial government of unity, we invite other parties to come so once a party comes and say but don’t bring this one or that one we are not going to agree to such things,” said ANC Gauteng Provincial Secretary TK Nciza.Yesterday’s cancellation of the announcement of Lesufi’s cabinet was a second after a last-minute intervention by the ANC national leadership in a bid to get him to agree to a deal with the DA which the provincial ANC is apprehensive about. “The DA did not believe the announcement will go ahead today because for some reason the believe they are in charge of the ANC, they think they are responsible for us and they are leading us in the legislature. We are not led by the DA. The only reason we are here explaining is because the national leadership of the ANC has asked that maybe wait so that we intervene. The premier was ready to announce but the ANC is a unitary structure guided by principles of democratic centralism. When the leadership of the ANC says wait, we can’t say no no no because we are ready, in fact we have concluded with other parties, said Provincial Executive Committee member Lebogang Maile.