MK Party leader Jacob Zuma has snubbed talks of coalition with “ANC of Ramaphosa”.
This comes after the ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula pleaded with members of the media gathered at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni, where the party’s national executive committee’s (NEC) special meeting is convening.
Mbalula’s plea follows the party’s failed attempts to engage Zuma and his party on a possible coalition government deal.
“We tried to reach out. So, even if yourselves, you can be in a position to help us, to find Zuma, we would appreciate that, but the country must move ahead, the country must go on. In the next two weeks, we must elect the speaker, and we must elect the president.
“We are open to talking to the MK Party; that is not an issue for us,” Mbalula said.
He said the party had narrowed its options to a government of national unity instead of a coalition government.
While addressing the media on the sidelines of the special NEC meeting, Mbalula alluded that the current political situation was like that of the Convention for a Democrat South Africa (Codesa) before the democratic breakthrough in 1994.
“Talks about talks continue, and having received a mandate from the NEC to hard negotiations, and where we will look at the options and the technicalities, because the Government of National Unity (GNU ) that we talk about might be different from 1994.
“The technical team in terms of negotiating and so on, will receive a broad mandate, but here we are expecting a sober discussion and engagement, and further based on experiences of other countries in the world who have been in a similar situation as ours.
“We have scenarios, from scenarios we have options, and we have narrowed down to GNU where we invite everyone. We therefore have not confined ourselves to an identity of a party because another political party may say they are not interested in that,” Mbalula explained.
Furthermore, he said what was of the importance was to prioritise negotiations with the primary principle that guided the party in the engagement being “in the interest of the people”.
The ANC has this week been speaking to political parties in a bid to form a government after it failed to win last week’s elections with an outright majority, the first time since 1994.
The Star