‘The ANC is in trouble in Gauteng,’ says Beaumont as ActionSA makes inroads - TimesLIVE
ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont has warned that the ANC ought to be concerned that its historic hegemony in Gauteng’s townships is waning, as his party makes strong inroads into this support base.
ActionSA is zeroing in on wards that have historically been ANC strongholds, as the electoral commission tallies the votes from Wednesday’s local government elections.
“We have now taken 38 wards off the ANC in the townships of Gauteng. All wards of Tembisa have been claimed by ActionSA, every ward except one in Atteridgeville has been won by ActionSA, and we won eight wards in Soshanguve. We’re waiting for Mamelodi but we’re expecting a very similar outcome there. We’re winning wards in Mabopane.
“From a Johannesburg point of view, we are standing at eight wards in Soweto, a bunch of wards in the CBD, Ivory Park, Diepsloot, and the list is extending broadly, but it looks like the ANC is in trouble. There’s been a huge swing from them to us in those communities.”
As his party establishes itself as the third-largest in Gauteng metros, Beaumont maintained that they would be willing to form a government with others, provided they agreed on stability and direction.
“We’ve taken a point of view to declare that we must be open to working with all political parties in South Africa. The era of saying we will work with these [parties] and won’t work with those parties is done.
“If you look at South Africa, there is only one party that is not working with the ANC right now, and it’s the MK Party, and it’s not for a lack of effort. The point is, you’ve got to actually be able to say which configuration of parties is going to deliver the best services.”
He said his party was already ahead, having gone through a process of developing a coalition framework before the election, considering that it will only have 14 days for negotiations across 105 municipalities around the country.
“Right now I think South Africans care so much more about good services than they care about the colour of the t-shirt that’s delivering those services. It is about who is going to deliver that configuration, which people often miss in that equation.
“The quality of the leader in that municipality is the most important factor, where different political parties can do very well in one arrangement and totally badly in another because they don’t have the right leaders on the ground.”
Beaumont said his party had a non-negotiable set of principles which would guide talks.
“There needs to be a programmatic commitment to delivering services to everyone. There’s got to be stability, we’ve got to end the revolving door of mayors. There’s got to be a plan to fight corruption and bring the issue of illegal immigration to find expression in local government.”
Beaumont dismissed claims that his party could have capitalised on the contentious immigration crisis to gain voter support.
“The reality is that we haven’t blamed foreigners for the crisis in South Africa. We’ve placed that blame at national government. The ANC before, and now the government of national unity have failed to protect our borders.
“If anyone can look me in the eyes and tell me we can properly police borders in South Africa, I’d urge them to get psychiatric treatment because the truth is that we don’t. Our borders don’t exist. There are people who take advantage of the fact that our immigration laws are soft.”
With 37% of ballots counted in Gauteng by 6pm on Thursday, ActionSA’s tally across Gauteng stood at 21.65% in Tshwane, 16.57% in Johannesburg and 17.09% in Ekurhuleni.
