DA must keep EFF out of power, even if it means coalition with the ANC says Hill-Lewis
City of Cape Town mayor and prominent member of the Democratic Alliance, Geordin Hill-Lewis, believes that the party can work with the ANC should it fail to gain an outright majority in the 2024 general elections.
In a wide-ranging interview with Mail & Guardian, Hill-Lewis rubber-stamped party leader John Steenhuisen’s perspective on the ANC, saying it would be “very silly” for the DA not to consider a coalition with the national ruling party.
“I think that it would be short sighted. That would be handing a position in the national government to a political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, that is hell bent on destroying this country. I can’t do that and sleep well at night.”
In February last year, Steenhuisen raised eyebrows when, in an interview with Sunday Times, he said that the DA would work with the ANC under President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The ANC has been projected to be at risk of seeing its support fall below 50% in next year’s general election. Its internal polls predicted that it would decline to an all-time low of 40% without Ramaphosa and 48% with the incumbent party leader.
Hill-Lewis has endorsed Steenhuisen for another term as leader of the DA, which is expected to hold its party elections in April. He said a coalition with the governing party must only happen to thwart any possible ANC-EFF relationship.
The EFF has already had talks with the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal. Some within the party have said that newly-elected ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile will be central to talks between the two organisations.
“The one certainty is that all of us across the political divide, I believe, should do everything possible to keep the EFF away from the national government because they will destroy South Africa. I think we have a moral responsibility and a political responsibility and a democratic responsibility to work together to prevent the EFF from getting into national government,” Hill-Lewis said.
“I’m happy to work with a wide range of people who agree on that certainty. The second certainty is that if there is a potential of any coalition that excludes the ANC, that should be tried first, that the ANC must be punished democratically at the polls for what they have done to South Africa. And that it would be ideal to have a non-ANC coalition government.
“What if it’s not possible to put together a coalition without the ANC, and the only alternative is an ANC-EFF coalition? Then, I think it would be very silly to suggest that that should be off the table.”
Hill-Lewis said he was confident of the party’s leadership, adding that the DA was in a much better place than it was when former leader Mmusi Maimane left.
The DA won the Gauteng metro’s by a hair strand in 2021 after coalition negotiations between the EFF and the ANC fell apart. The EFF then decided to vote for DA mayors in all three metros with no consultation with the DA. This was against a DA policy adopted following its dismal showing in 2019 that it could not have a partnership with the EFF.
In a recent interview with the M&G, former DA mayor in Johannesburg Mpho Phalatse said the party needed to be more “honest” of its relationship with the EFF, arguing that under her leadership the official opposition would be willing to forge relations with the red berets.
Phalatse is the only contender who has raised her hand to go up against Steenhuisen in the blue party’s April elections.
Disagreeing with Phalatse, Hill-Lewis said that it was worth devoting all of the DA’s resources to preventing the EFF from going into government.
“I would be prepared to do almost anything to prevent the EFF getting anywhere close to governments in South Africa. I think it would be a catastrophe for the future of our country; it will be profoundly harmful to the interests of South Africans, particularly poor South Africans,” he said.
Hill-Lewis’ administration in Cape Town recently announced a new initiative to further curb load-shedding in the city. The city will pay cash and an incentive to businesses that feed their excess power into the grid.This way, it expects to reduce load-shedding by four stages and possibly even end it altogether.
“From this programme, I think everyone benefits when there’s no load-shedding. But also the power heroes allow every household, no matter what income level, to benefit from the programme, because they can save power and get paid for it as well. Then the third leg is buying power from homes and businesses directly, those who have solar panels,” Hill-Lewis said.
“Then the fourth one, which is actually the most important, the key one is what is called dispatchable power. That’s where you take your buy power from IPPs (independent power producers) and you add storage so that the power is available exactly when you need it. That’s what dispatchable means in the industry. That’s going out in about three weeks or a month’s time, at the most. That’ll be quite significant, about 500MW.
“When those four things come together over the next few years, they will stop load-shedding in Cape Town,” he said.
The DA could potentially leverage on its energy gains when it campaigns for the 2024 elections, which may result in Hill-Lewis becoming a bigger power player in the party. He has already been punted as a possible contender to take over from Steenhuisen in 2027.
