No marriage of convenience for us, IFP tells EFF

The IFP has reaffirmed its snub of the ANC, saying it’s the IFP’s duty to restore dignity where it has been stripped away by the ruling party’s mismanagement, corruption and greed.

IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa said despite recent coalition government developments, his party would not be distracted by insults from political parties that flip-flop with each passing month.

Hlabisa was responding to EFF leader Julius Malema, who sent a strong message at the party's plenum regarding the end of its working relationship with the IFP.

“We have seen that the apartheid collaborator, IFP, is not ready to change, and we are going to stop working with them. The IFP must not get anything anywhere where we are involved, be it Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Mogale City. Anywhere you see the ugly head of the IFP, put it aside,” Malema had said.

Malema also mentioned a plot to remove all DA mayors and to devise a co-governing strategy between the ruling party and the red berets, including various minority parties.

The IFP leader told a briefing it was “interesting to see political parties that initially took a stand against the ANC – against corruption and the impending downfall of SA – back in bed with the ANC again”.

“This is due to their own greed for power, positions and contracts. Birds of the same feather flock together,” Hlabisa said.

He said  IFP and EFF leaders held a meeting where the EFF expressed a desire to lead a municipality in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, where it would gain governance experience.

“In the main, they indicated they have a strained relationship with the DA, and they thus engaged with the ANC, and now together with the ANC they offered a token mayoral position to the IFP at Mogale City in Gauteng.

“In the [City of Joburg], they offered that the ANC would identify a small party to take the position of the mayor and that the EFF would do the same at Ekurhuleni. These would be token proxy mayors to be effectively manipulated by EFF and the ANC,” Hlabisa said.

After this request, Hlabisa alleged, the EFF became arrogant when the IFP refused to give in to EFF demands to hand over uMhlathuze municipality, saying “this would be a betrayal of the trust and confidence placed in the IFP by the people of uMhlathuze”.

Thereafter, the IFP told the Red Berets it would not join any coalition arrangement that included the ANC and further proposed changes to the coalition governments in Gauteng to incorporate the EFF in government – without returning the ANC to power.

Hlabisa said the EFF rejected these proposals, indicating its deal with the ANC would proceed with or without the IFP.

“Out of the 29 municipalities we govern, the IFP is only likely to lose one municipality because of this latest development.”

Hlabisa said “this unholy marriage” between the ANC and the EFF would not derail the IFP's march to “remove the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal” next year.

If necessary, and “while they are exaggerated, we will take the loss of one or two municipalities as and when this arises, and then let the citizens be the judges in 2024”.

“We will not be new to the opposition benches in Gauteng, and we will definitely not be dragooned into unholy coalitions with the ANC at the behest of the EFF,” Hlabisa said. – TimesLIVE

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