The coalition agreement between the DA and Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) in the Western Cape is on shaky ground.
This as the DA provincial head in the province, Jaco Londt, accused the FF Plus of being an untrustworthy partner. Londt said the FF Plus had breached their coalition agreement by voting with the ANC.
“The FF Plus voted with the ANC to remove a DA mayor in Cape Agulhas. In that municipality, the ANC and FF Plus voted together and it was not on principle but on a personality clash that we offered to mediate, and they denied it.
“We have a voice recording of a FF Plus deputy leader in the province lobbying smaller parties to get rid of the DA mayor in George. The FF Plus is obviously economical with the truth,” DA provincial head said.
The FF Plus Western Cape leader Corne Mulder denied these allegations, saying the DA was in fact arrogant.
He said it was concerning that the DA would accuse his party of using underhanded tactics, and explained that in Cape Agulhas, a disciplinary hearing against the mayor by an outside panel had unanimously found the mayor guilty of misconduct. The DA promoted the mayor to the National Assembly.
“The DA reacted by promoting that mayor to National Assembly and unfortunately that’s how they operate. The FF Plus is serious about coalitions, but I think there’s an underlying problem here, and I understand why. The DA is used to govern on its own,” Mulder explained.
The FF Plus leader said his organisation refused to rubber stamp the unethical conduct by the DA and its mayor.
Last Wednesday, the DA announced that its coalition with the FF Plus in the Langeberg Local Municipality had been dissolved, after the DA lodged a dispute against the FF Plus over its refusal to support the coalition’s budget in the council in May.
According to the DA, this constituted a material breach of their coalition agreement, and contributed significantly to the breakdown of trust between the two parties.
During 2021 local government elections, no party won a majority in council, which resulted in the DA and FF Plus forming the majority coalition.
Trouble between the two parties started in Oudtshoorn when the DA accused the FF Plus of being in cahoots with the ANC, in a bid to oust the DA from power.
During a council meeting last month, a motion of no confidence in the mayor was passed successfully. This resulted in the collapse of the coalition agreement, and the FF Plus took control of Oudtshoorn together with the ANC.
Prior to the removal of the DA mayor, Mulder said the FF Plus together with other parties had pleaded with the DA to put forward a new candidate for the mayoral position.
“We ask them to fill in somebody else for the mayor position and we will support that person, because we want to retain and remain members of the coalition but the DA was not prepared to do so.
“The motion of no confidence against the mayor succeeded and we then invited the DA to form a government, they declined then we invited all the parties in the municipality to form a Government of Local Unity (GLU),” he said.
Mulder said the FF Plus was then accused of betraying the trust of DA.
But Londt said governance had proved to be better where the DA governed, and added that the DA ministers in the Government of National Unity (GNU) had proven to be competent.
However, Mulder labelled Londt’s statement as “arrogant”, saying it was unbelievable that all DA ministers were simply the best out of all ministers in the GNU.
Mulder said the fact that the DA had a good media team didn’t equate to their ministers being the best, “This is the kind of underlying arrogance we have seen from the DA. If you look what happened in the Western Cape, we are not in alliance with the ANC.
“With all due respect the DA, must not think they’re holier than thou, when we discussed the budget in Oudtshoorn, other parties made very good proposals on how we can save money in the area, the response of the superman mayor of theirs, was ‘this is my budget’,” he added.
The Star