Pretoria - As the horse-trading begins among the biggest political parties in Gauteng’s three hung metropolitan municipalities, the allocation of seats has shed light on the number of councillors needed to form coalition governments.
In the City of Johannesburg, a party needs 136 seats from 270 to form a government and the ANC has the biggest share of the seats with 91 including 87 ward and four proportional representation (PR) councillors.
To continue governing Johannesburg, the ANC will require 45 votes from smaller parties to form a coalition government.
The DA is the second biggest party in the country’s economic hub, with 71 seats – 43 wards and 28 PR.
Former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA will be the third largest party in council with its 44 PR seats and the EFF has 29, all PR.
The Patriotic Alliance (PA) and the IFP have eight and seven seats, respectively, while the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) has four.
Al Jama-ah and the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) each have three seats and African Independent Congress (AIC) has two.
Eight other political parties such as Patricia de Lille’s GOOD, Bantu Holomisa’s UDM, COPE, African Transformation Movement (ATM), African Heart Congress, PAC, United Independent Movement and African People's Convention each have one seat.
The ANC which requires 45 additional seats to govern Johannesburg could look to forge a pact with the likes of the EFF (29 seats) and a few other smaller parties.
In the case of the DA, which requires 65 seats, it could look to the ActionSA (44) and a few other smaller parties to form a coalition government.
In the capital, the City of Tshwane, 108 councillors will be needed to form a government and the ANC secured 75 of the 214 council seats while the DA has 69.
The EFF has 23 councillors, ActionSA has 19 and FF+ 17.
The ACDP will have two council seats while nine other parties will have one each including GOOD, PAC, PA and COPE.
In Tshwane, the DA can look to ActionSA, FF+, ACDP and Cope to form a coalition government, while the ANC has a tough task to find 33 more seats. A pact between the EFF, GOOD, PAC and PA would not be enough.
In Ekurhuleni, 113 councillors out of 224 are needed to form a governing coalition and the ANC’s 86 means the party will need 27 other seats.
The DA won 65 seats in the municipality east of Gauteng while the EFF secured 31 followed by ActionSA with 15.
The FF+ has eight, PA (four), IFP and AIC, three each, and two for the ACDP.
The PAC, ATM, UDM and COPE are among seven parties with one representative in council.
A pact with the EFF alone in Ekurhuleni would secure council for the ANC, whereas the DA requires 48 more seats.
Mashaba this week said his party would not go into a coalition with the ANC despite a member of its top six leadership structure approaching him.
ANC Gauteng chairperson David Makhura assured voters the party will not go into a coalition with anybody who just wants to be in power.
Earlier on Thursday, EFF leader Julius Malema announced that amending the Constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation was the only way his party would enter into coalitions with the ANC.
Malema also suggested that the EFF had been approached by ANC leaders promising the party anything in exchange for its help in running the hung metros.
POLITICAL BUREAU