Cape Town - DA leader John Steenhuisen has said his party is in full election mode ahead of the 2024 general election and has outlined the key issues leading up to the poll, with load shedding at the top of the list.
Steenhuisen, who was delivering what he called his True State of the Nation Address (Tsona), said the situation in the country was only going to get worse.
He said load shedding was “by far the single biggest impediment to investment and growth” and the most visible and most threatening state failure to affect South Africans.
“But it is by no means the only one. Our Post Office has collapsed. Our freight rail network has collapsed. Our passenger rail service has collapsed.
“Our ports have all but collapsed. Our police service is losing the war on violent crime.
“And municipal service delivery in hundreds of towns across the country is virtually non-existent.”
Steenhuisen said at the next election the country had a “simple choice” between the ANC and the DA.
In response to a question from a Spanish diplomat who attended the function, Steenhuisen hinted at the possibility of a DA-led coalition government after the next election.
DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube took this line further and said the DA had been actively studying coalition governments in Germany and Kenya and was pushing for electoral reform in South Africa to strengthen coalition governments.
Gwarube said these reforms would include measures such as a public agreement to manage a coalition government that all parties to the coalition would sign up to. She said such a system would also favour the ANC if they ended up needing to forrm a coalition government.
In December, Steenhuisen met with ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba and both made a commitment to collaborate with other like-minded political parties ahead of the 2024 national and provincial elections with a view to galvanising South Africans behind a viable alternative to the ANC.
The issue of coalitions was discussed at the ANC’s national policy conference last year at which the party acknowledged several past mistakes in joining forces without giving proper thought to government formation.
The provincial ANC recently dismissed calls by some of its activists to shun coalition arrangements and called for the development of a national coalition policy which recognised the party’s principles and non-negotiables.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za