MK Party rules out coalition with DA, targets ANC, IFP and EFF

Ask AI 4minThe MK Party says Jacob Zuma, flanked here by his son and the party's first deputy president Duduzane Zuma, and secretary-general Lindiwe Mstahli, has instructed the leadership to begin coalition discussions as soon as possible, identifying black parties like the ANC, IFP, EFF, SACP and ActionSA among potential partners.

The uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party has ruled out working with the Democratic Alliance (DA) in possible coalition arrangements, saying it will prioritise engagements with political formations that share its values and vision for South Africa, including the African National Congress (ANC), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

Advocate Dali Mpofu said party president Jacob Zuma had instructed the leadership to begin discussions with other political formations as soon as possible following the November 4 local government elections, IOL reported.

Speaking during a media briefing at the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) KwaZulu-Natal Results Operations Centre (ROC) on Saturday, Mpofu said the DA had already made its position clear about working with the MK Party.

“The DA has come out right that they are not prepared to work with us. So we are going to be engaging parties that are likeminded, that share the same values, the same ideology as us and with the same interests in terms of what we seek to achieve,” Mpofu said.

He reiterated that the party’s focus would be on formations with which it shared political interests rather than pursuing an arrangement with the DA.

“So when it comes to the DA, they’ve made it very clear that they are not prepared to work with us. So our focus is on the parties that share the same values as us,” he said.

Mpofu said Zuma had instructed the party to start engagements with other political formations without delay.

“Mr Zuma was strong and instructed us to start those discussions as soon as possible,” he said.

Among the parties identified for engagement were the ANC, IFP, ActionSA, EFF, African Transformation Movement (ATM) and South African Communist Party (SACP).

Mpofu said the party’s approach to coalition negotiations was informed by the election outcome, with more than 120 of the country’s 257 municipalities expected to require coalition arrangements.

He said the electorate had effectively made co-operation between political parties necessary, with almost half of the country’s municipalities facing hung councils.

“As we have said, the broad approach is to engage parties and that’s not because it’s something the MK Party wants to do. We respect the people of South Africa,” he said.

“And the people of South Africa have decided that for the first time, you’re going to have about 120 or more municipalities that are hung.”

He said the party’s preference would naturally be to work with formations that shared its political principles and vision, particularly its position on the return of land.

Mpofu said the party’s internal documents outlined its broader political outlook, including the return of land, which would inform its approach to potential coalition partners.

“Our natural affinity will be to those parties that share the values and what a future South Africa should look like. But other than that, we are talking to various people, to all the players who are willing to talk to us,” he said.

Mpofu also pushed back against questions about whether the MK Party’s participation in coalition governments could affect political stability.

He criticised what he described as the media’s preoccupation with stability, arguing that voters had already made their decision at the ballot box.

“The obsession with so-called stability by the media must remain there where it belongs,” he said.

He argued that the party’s performance in the elections showed that voters had given it a significant mandate, despite it being less than three years old and contesting local government elections for the first time.

Mpofu said the party had secured a 10% share of the national vote, describing this as unprecedented for a party entering local government elections for the first time.

Mpofu also rejected suggestions that the MK Party had lost support in KwaZulu-Natal compared with the 2024 national and provincial elections.

He was responding to a question about the party’s provincial support, which stood at approximately 34.5% with about 97% of the results processed, compared with the 45% it received in KwaZulu-Natal in 2024.

Mpofu argued that the two elections could not be directly compared because they were different types of elections.

He said the MK Party had grown from having no representation in local government elections to securing a 10% share of the national vote.

He also pointed to the ANC’s loss of 14 percentage points and the DA’s increase of just over two percentage points, arguing that the MK Party had taken a significant share of support from parties in the Government of National Unity.

“The ANC has declined by 14 percentage points from 54 to 30. The DA that’s going around as if they’ve just won the school prize have only gone up by 2 percent, two point something percent,” Mpofu said.

He argued that the MK Party’s gains accounted for 10 percentage points of the decline in support for the GNU partners.

“Ten of those points came from MK. MK Party has inflicted maximum injury to the forces of the right wing. That is the headline of this election,” he said.

Mpofu maintained that the correct comparison would be between local government elections, rather than comparing the party’s performance in the 2024 national and provincial elections with its performance in 2026.

“The comparison that you must do for 2024, you must do it in 2029. And then you must compare now with what’s going to happen in 2031,” he said.