Johannesburg – As political parties begin to negotiate coalition governments following this year’s local elections, EFF Leader Julius Malema says his party is ready to govern a municipality.
Malema said although his party did not win a single of the 257 municipalities, they were happy that they and other opposition parties had managed to reduce the support of the ANC to below 50% nationally and forced the ruling party into coalitions in more municipalities and metros.
Malema also warned that they would act against their leaders in Gauteng, where the party did not do well.
“The issue of us governing, we are more than ready to govern. We are not backtracking anything. The first preferred model is that ‘you take your municipality, and we take our municipality’”, he said, speaking at the Independent Electoral Commission’s National Results Operations Centre today.
“People said they don’t want to be governed by the EFF. So, what must I say? I must say that the people want us to govern them. No! it is obvious, they did not elect us, they are not ready to be led by the government of the EFF. But the EFF can lead them through a coalition,” he added.
Malema’s comments came after his party secured 10% of the votes nationally, which was a growth of 2% compared to the 2016.
However, the party dropped support in Gauteng and Limpopo, while it grew exponentially in KwaZulu Natal. In 2016, the party finished in third position in the City of Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub. But this year they were overtaken by Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA, which scored 16% support while the EFF managed only 10,65%.
In Limpopo, Malema’s party received 16% support, making it the official opposition in 2016. However, this year the party ‘s support dropped to 14,2%.
“There will be consequences management here in Gauteng. The story is that when we go to local government, we declined in Gauteng during the 2016 local government elections. In Gauteng in 2014 we did well. The local government elections has always played its own tricky games,” he said.
“If there was outright stupidity in Gauteng, we going to deal with it decisively. The comrades in Limpopo fought, they put everything, it is what it is. However, if there was a clownishness, we will deal with in next few weeks here in Gauteng and we will deal with it decisively,” he added.
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