United Democratic Movement (UDM) deputy president Nqabayomzi Kwankwa has described the ANC as a dying party that is “mutilating itself”.
He said the UDM would not interrupt the ANC’s decline by entering into a coalition with it in Buffalo City.
Kwankwa, the UDM’s mayoral candidate in the metro, said that voters had rejected the ANC, and the UDM would not bring it back via the back door.
“It’s not personal. We don’t have issues at a personal level with the African National Congress or its leaders. But we made it clear that the people voted against the ANC. They wanted to remove the ANC from power because of its misrule, the corruption and all the service delivery challenges in the metro. We can’t now, as a political party, bring them back into power via the back door.
“If we have no intention of going into a coalition government with the ANC, for what good reason would we negotiate? We’ll be wasting each other’s time. However, if they insist and they want to have our ear, that’s fine, because there’s no animosity between the UDM and the ANC. We just feel it would be a waste of time”, Kwankwa said.
He then went further.
“Perhaps, just as a political comment, if you look at the results around the country, the ANC is a dying party. It’s like a dying party standing in a corner, mutilating itself. Why would we want to interrupt that when we are a growing party?” Kwankwa said.
With 367 of 380 voting districts counted in Buffalo City, the ANC was on 41.5%, down from the 59.4% it won outright in 2021. The UDM was second on 20%, ahead of the DA on 16.8%. The UDM won about 1% in the metro in 2021.
Asked how he could refuse to work with the ANC locally while the UDM sits in the government of national unity with it, Kwankwa said the GNU had no bearing on councils.
“There’s no GNU here. It doesn’t apply at local government level. We didn’t contest the elections as the GNU. We were competitors. We wanted to remove an ANC government from power, even here. If there had been a GNU arrangement, we would probably not have campaigned as hard as we did. The GNU arrangement only applies at national level. It does not dictate to us, as independent political parties, what we should do and how we should run our political programmes,” he said.
He said that the UDM had started informal talks with other opposition parties.
“We are in the process of having preliminary talks with various political parties, to look at various scenarios and permutations for a coalition government. If it works, it works great. I’m here to be a mayor. If it doesn’t work, we’ll be content to be the official opposition and hold whoever is in charge to account,” he said.
He said he would not insist on the mayoral chain.
“We’re not going to impose it on the collective. If we look at the percentages of the various parties around the table, we will be the largest party in those discussions. But we’re not going to behave like other larger parties do in other coalitions. It’s not about positions. I came here to be a mayor, but I’m not going to be a mayor by any means necessary,” Kwankwa said.
Kwankwa, who is also the UDM’s chief whip in the National Assembly, has said he will give up his seat in Parliament if he becomes mayor.