The supposed betrayal of the anti-ANC multiparty coalition by Action SA yesterday has attracted a great deal of ire, and will likely cost the little green party dearly in upcoming elections.

But as it turns out, the party was merely defending itself against a more severe pending betrayal by the DA.

Sometime earlier this year, when I was in conversation with Dr Corné Mulder at a little event, he raised a certain theory. He argued that the DA may well be tempted to extend their national coalition down into the metros.

This made a lot of sense - over the many years of metropolitan coalition politics, the DA, and Helen Zille in particular, have railed against the little parties and the outsized leverage they wield in coalitions.

I had expected it to take a reasonably long time - at least until the 2026 local elections, to take effect, but as it turns out the DA were a little more eager to act than the strategic environment could justify.

According to both George Matjila of the ANC and Michael Beaumont of Action SA, the DA had reached out to the ANC to trade metros - they intended to let the ANC govern Ekurhuleni, in exchange for support in running Tshwane alone as a minority government. Helen Zille admitted as much, in a slightly different tone, just two weeks ago.

This sort of ruthless and cynical horse-trading has clearly backfired. The maths don’t work out either - out of Ekurhuleni’s 224 seats, the ANC and EFF have 117, five more than half. The DA does not have the capacity to challenge them here, despite the tensions in the coalition.

Action SA may well be accused of hypocrisy in forming a coalition with the ANC after taking such a dramatic stance as boycotting the GNU talks earlier this year, but for the DA to extend that coalition down to the metros to get rid of the irritation of having to negotiate policy with smaller parties rather changes the game.

Nor would it be ther first time they’ve looked to the ANC to go around their coalition partners’ backs in a municipality this year. Their friendliness with Ramaphosa’s faction at the national level seems to have given a peculiar sort of confidence to their branches.

Oudtshoorn’s implosion earlier this year was partially motivated by the DA mayor’s repeated use of the ANC to undermine its coalition partners when they disagreed. The VF+ of course got the last laugh by opening negotiations to all parties after removing the DA mayor, and putting together a coalition of all parties but the DA after the liberal party refused to join negotiations.

But while Action SA was perhaps within their rights to self-defence to some extent,  their public communications have been unnecessarily hostile and racially charged. When the announcement of the motion of no confidence was announced, Action SA Tshwane caucus leader Jackie Mathabathe expressed himself like this:

"The days of white monopoly in Tshwane are numbered. As the clock ticks down, the racists and DA puppets may howl in desperation, but their time is up. In just 16 days, your so-called 'Golden Boy' will be escorted from power, and with him, the last remnants of your privilege will crumble. We are Mashaba, and Mashaba is us!"

This is clearly not a difference of style, management or policy - the party’s eagerness to do business with the EFF appears to have less to do with mere practicality than with a simmering racial animus which the white members of the party are willing to tolerate for the sake of their grievances with the DA.

And of course, as much of the coverage on this site has highlighted, the DA can indeed be poor coalition partners - arrogant, duplicitous, highhanded and inflexible.

But in Tshwane, while they have fixed a few issues here and there, their performance has been somewhat lacklustre. Of course, this is not entirely their fault; they have been subject to some rather extreme disruptions and sabotage, both from within and without the coalition.

The massive budget deficit that Tshwane has endured since the DA took over can be attributed to at least two things that are not entirely their fault - ANC evergreen contracts, and being illegally placed under administration.

When Solly Msimanga took over Tshwane in 2016,  the ANC had prepared ahead of time by signing several expensive long-term contracts with party-affiliated companies.

The ANC had learned, both here and in Nelson Mandela Bay, that the best way of continuing to loot after being removed from office would be to use cadres in the civil service to amend evergreen contracts, allowing them to create new financial opportunities for themselves without having to issue any new tenders.

Msimanga of course did not do himself any favours - his attempts to solidify good relations with the ANC appointees in the metro included extending lifetime employment contracts. Why he would do something so foolish is left to speculation.

The perseverance of ANC management appointees left a massive leak in the municipality just as they were about to take over a severely corrupt and derelict administration.

Worse, in 2020, the ANC illegally placed the municipality under administration. They issued confusing and erroneous municipal accounts to thousands of residents, utterly suspended all waste removal, and shut the landfill sites, leading to massive piles of garbage piling up outside them, and this was just their first two weeks.

While under provincial administration, the metro did not release financial statements for 2020 and 2021, though the 2022 financial statements include a summary of the 2021 data. During this time, the city went from over a R2.9 billion surplus to a R2.2 billion deficit.

That said, under the DA-appointed CFO Umar Banda, over R10 billion in irregular expenditure was found, and Tshwane failed to achieve a clean audit in 2023, resulting in the city firing and laying criminal charges against Banda.

But by now it was too late. Cilliers Brink inherited a circus from his colleagues, who had failed to properly rid the municipality of corrupt ANC ties and had equally failed to appoint sufficiently competent management to the municipality’s most important role.

His predecessor, Randall Williams, had followed what has become a DA staple - acting without consultation. He was criticised in particular for a R26 billion contract for the refurbishment of the Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations. His choices of contractor and his conduct in meetings had proceeded without proper discussion with coalition partners, and the coalition collapsed, with several arguments over timelines and proper procedure for getting rid of the mayor.

After a (hilariously) brief sojourn with a COPE mayor in charge of the city, the mayoral chain went back to the DA, under Brink. But Brink was in many ways handed a poison chalice, with issues relating to waste management, vehicle fleets and maintenance that have dragged on for years, and some very unhappy coalition partners, still reeling from the shakeup at the national level.

I have some pity for Brink. He seems a sensible chap, but his tenure was short, and beset by challenges. Whether he would have been able to fix Tshwane or not is now a matter purely for counterfactual speculation.

But Action SA may still pay for their retaliation at the ballot box. Their one advantage after rejecting the GNU was their ability to cast themselves as a principled opposition. But this will be a difficult image to sell after Tshwane.

As for the GNU, what it has demonstrated is the power of the anti-Ramaphosa faction which still controls Gauteng. Their show of strength in taking back the metros will allow them far more clout and patronage leading up to the party leadership selection process.

The DA, for their part, has shown that after decades of outright opposition, negotiating with the ANC is much harder than challenging them in court.

And this will have after-shocks for a while.

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