Saving Phalatse wasn’t worth it — Steenhuisen

DA leader John Steenhuisen says the party tried to do everything it could to save its dethroned Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse, but “the price was too high to pay”.

Steenhuisen told the Sunday Times this weekend why the DA refused demands from the Patriotic Alliance (PA) which led to Phalatse being voted out on Thursday.

The PA switched sides after the DA refused to commit to giving it the two mayoral committee portfolios it had demanded, including economic development, which had previously been held by the Gayton McKenzie-led party.

Steenhuisen said the DA tried to meet the PA halfway but its demands were unreasonable. Dealing with the PA was tantamount to gambling, he said, after it previously failed to stick to agreements and “walked away” from the DA-led multiparty coalition partnership last year. Instead, the PA subsequently voted with the ANC to install its mayor and Cope’s speaker.

“There was an attempt late last year to try to bring the PA back on board, [but] we were very sceptical,” Steenhuisen said. “Nonetheless, we made a compromise and began negotiations which led to the DA making six major concessions at the negotiating table while the PA made not a single concession.

“The price was too high to pay to bring the PA back on the terms that they wanted. There was no deal; there was a proposal which, tabled before our federal executive, it was not prepared to accept.”

Steenhuisen said his party was prepared to give the PA the two MMC positions it had asked for, but not that of economic development, which it desperately wanted. The DA move was motivated by the PA’s “past behaviour there and their stated intentions”.

ActionSA should also take part of the blame for Phalatse’s removal, Steenhuisen said. He accused it of plotting with the EFF and IFP behind the DA’s back to take over the mayorship last October. The EFF would have taken the position of speaker.

Even when ActionSA had come around, Steenhuisen said, it again fielded its own candidate when the Johannesburg council voted for a new mayor on Friday.

“There is no bad blood between Mpho Phalatse and the DA. This is ActionSA attempting to drive a wedge between Mpho and the DA. The only party that let Mpho Phalatse down was ActionSA, because all of the coalition partners agreed they would vote for her in the first round of balloting. ActionSA broke away from Mpho and instead voted for Fundzi Ngobeni who they put up as their candidate, the only coalition partner to do so. They abandoned mayor Phalatse.”

Working with the EFF was never going to be on the table, Steenhuisen said, because the DA had endless difficulties in its previous relationship with the party in Joburg. He alleged that, in the 2016-21 local government term, DA mayor Herman Mashaba had “reported to the EFF caucus first before reporting to his own caucus.”

He said there was “not a values fit for any relationship with the EFF. We have ruled out coalitions with the EFF”.