The ANC is adamant that the National Government of National Unity was not just the best option but a strategic coup after a poor performance in the recent election which saw it lose its parliamentary majority for the first since taking over the country in 1994.
The assertion comes amid claims by the DA through Federal Chairperson Helen Zille that the GNU was actually just a coalition between the two parties.
The ANC’s head of political school David Makhura briefed the media on the sidelines of the party’s National Executive Committee meeting in Boksburg that Zille’s recent comments amounted to “ranting” as she realised the got the better end of the deal.
“Helen saying no its not a GNU, its a coalition it between us and them is just
Makhura said if the ANC was a weakling it would have gave in to the DA’s demands for a high number of positions in the executive council of Gauteng which led to the collapse of talks with the provincial ANC and the DA’s subsequent exclusion from the government of provincial unity.
“What happened in Gauteng was completely approved by the national executive committee,” said Makhura adding that the DA was coming with unreasonable demands.
Makhura also took a swipe at the so called ‘progressive caucus’ which is made up of left leaning parties such as the EFF and Jacob Zuma’s MK Party dismissing the notion that they had ideological similarities with the ANC. He said just like the DA, the so called black parties are looking for opportunity to weaken the ANC further and ultimately finish it off.
“You must ask the DA, they tried their luck telling us you can’t do this you can’t do that, don’t talk to so and so. No self respecting party can allow itself to be told by another party what to do and what not to do. We said to them go jump in the lake. We said the same thing to the EFF, the MK party. We said to them if you want to work with us based on certain principles we can work but you can’t impose your agenda on us, you can’t tell us remove your leader, it’s unprincipled politics we can’t allow that because we are self respecting party”
Makhura said had it gone into a coalition with one or two parties, the ANC would have been forced to share power equally ending up with a reduced number of ministerial positions and policy uncertainty.