Durban - The IFP will co-operate with the DA and EFF in governing several hung municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, the parties announced on Wednesday.
“As announced by the EFF this afternoon, the EFF will vote for the IFP in KZN to govern hung municipalities. The DA will also support the IFP,” the party’s campaign committee boss, Narend Singh, said on Wednesday.
Singh said the IFP was likely to govern an additional five local municipalities through the co-operation with the DA and EFF, and three district municipalities.
“How we co-operate in each municipality will thus not be driven by politicking, but by how it can attain those goals of good governance, service delivery and a clean administration,” he said.
Singh made the statement hours after EFF leader, Julius Malema, told a press conference in Alexandria, Gauteng, that they would not vote for the ANC.
Also speaking at a separate briefing with other small parties, DA federal chairman, James Selfe, confirmed that they would co-operate with the IFP.
“We will assist them to govern in KZN municipalities and they will help us elsewhere. But we won’t take up positions in their structures,” Selfe said.
Singh confirmed that the EFF has indicated that they were not interested in positions, but rather in stronger co-operation in the administration of municipalities.
“We will thus work together in municipal councils after they are established,” Singh said. He, however, said the co-operation among the three parties would be extended to Gauteng.
“We were not prepared to have co-operation with one party here and with a different party there, as this would muddy the waters and create confusion.”
Singh also said the negotiations among the three parties had been to secure good governance, service delivery and an end to corruption.
“But our councillors will work together at local level, in various municipalities, to ensure that the will of the electorate is respected,” he added.
Reacting to the co-operation of the three parties, the ANC KZN spokesman, Mdumiseni Ntuli, said: “They are not governing the country and the province. There are a few municipalities they will govern on their own”.
“That is part of democratic system. Ours is to go to the drawing board and plan for the future,” he said.
Meanwhile, the IFP is certain it will co-operate with the EFF and DA in four municipalities: Abaqulusi, Nquthu, Mtubatuba and Endumeni, where their votes outnumber the ANC, while the ANC will control the merger of Mbabazane and Mtshezi with its partnership with Al-Jamah-Al.