The ANC Veterans League (ANCVL) this weekend will move a motion that the governing party must sever all ties with the EFF in hung municipalities.
This was said by the ANCVL convener, Snuki Zikalala, at the state of readiness press briefing on Thursday ahead of the league’s national congress.
The gathering of 500 veterans, which will also contribute to ANC government policy, is scheduled to begin on Friday at the Birchwood Hotel in Ekurhuleni.
According to Zikalala, among other policy discussions, the body of ANC elders will have to register their disapproval of the ANC-EFF marriage in Gauteng Metros.
In their view, the EFF is a no-go area as it does not represent the values the ANC espouses and is out to unseat them from power.
Therefore, he charged, the Birchwood delegates will convey loud and clear that Luthuli House must disengage from being EFF bedfellows no matter the circumstances.
If need be, Zikalala continued firing, the ANC must make peace with occupying the opposition benches where it does not enjoy an outright majority.
However, in the same breath, he suggested the ANCVL was not opposed to the governing party courting the DA.
He said the ANCVL would propose that where the ANC does not enjoy the 50 plus one majority, it should entertain the second most popular party, which happens to be the blue brigade.
“You cannot go into a coalition with a person you share no values with. We share no values with the EFF. The primary role of the EFF is to depose the ANC, and we feed from the same pond,” said Zikalala.
“We do not believe that the EFF means good to society, and our policies are completely different from theirs”. He said the ANC, therefore, needed to review its approach to coalitions.
“For instance, if we are in a province and we get 45% of the votes and another largest party gets 44% of the vote, why can’t we negotiate with that party irrespective of what that party is?” he asked.
He said the focus should be on service delivery because that is what the ANC should worry about. It is not a question of how we get out of that portfolio, he said.
Zikalala said the veterans had already registered their displeasure with Luthuli House’s top brass. Congress will take a “firm stance” to show that they mean what they say. Theirs, though, he added, was to work for the ANC’s outright victory in the national and provincial polls next year and to avoid coalitions altogether. But a coalition with the EFF was where they drew the line.
“We are saddened by being in coalition with the EFF, and we have raised it with the leadership that getting involved with the EFF takes our pride and dignity away, and this must be addressed.
The leadership, the Top Seven, has promised to meet with the veterans league leadership to address this issue,” he said.
He said the EFF does not even believe in our Constitutional democracy; it does not even respect the rule of law in this country.
“We cannot go into coalition with such a party,” Zikalala warned.
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