The President of the Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen said the emergence of independent candidates and smaller parties pose no threats to his party’s chances at the local government polls in November.
Steenhuisen statement was sequel to a statistical poll published by News24 yesterday which revealed that DA’s chances in Gauteng had diminished as a result of a coalition of smaller parties and independent candidates.
According to the poll, it was revealed that the local government election in Johannesburg is likely to go in favour of the ANC who amassed 41%, the DA 25%, the ActionSA 16%, while the EFF settled for 11%.
SurgeZirc SA understands that the former mayor and president of the ActionSA could be making inroads in the province.
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Reacting to this, Emfuleni caucus leader Tebogo Tlhokwe, disclosed that he had encountered people who wanted to vote for candidates of Mashaba’s ActionSA, who led a coalition government with the EFF after the 2016 elections.
“For us, Herman Mashaba might be a little bit of a challenge because he came up with tangible changes, but now where he went wrong is where he allowed the EFF to get too much into the values of us as the DA. Where we govern, we want to instill values, we want to be realistic, so he gave in too much to the EFF,” he said.
Mashaba resigned as Johannesburg mayor in 2018 after Helen Zille returned to the party’s national leadership as chairperson of the federal council.
Mashaba previously defended a contract that the city awarded to fleet company Afrirent after the company allegedly paid money into an EFF slush fund.
