A new coalition with the Democratic Alliance and the Active United Front in the Western Cape has changed the governance of the Bitou municipality.
Western Cape, South Africa (13 May 2017) – Bitou Mayor Peter Lobese announced the decision in a media statement on Saturday. He said that he considered the newly formed partnership between the DA and the AUF as a “unity of opposites” for a functional government with “pro-poor service delivery objectives”.
The Mayor said that his party had pulled out of the coalition with the ANC amid the reshuffle storm.
“I join the rest of South Africans at home and abroad who are troubled and pained by this ‘rogue’ president to make the point that our country cannot afford this‚ and nothing must be done to assist him to continue being in office even for one day‚” said Lobese.
“The AUF has entered a pro-poor co-operation agreement with the DA to grow the local economy and to improve the lives of our people.”
The agreement was based on several principles, including providing houses and employment to those who needed it.
“The AUF needs a partnership that brings a better offer for service delivery and economic upliftment of our people. The coalition government will be based on racial integration through special development, clean governance, ‘pro-poor’ service delivery, social, and economic development. We have identified and agreed on a number of projects that will improve the social cohesion and economy of the town for job creation.”
Lobese said that since the elections the AUF had been confronted with the dilemma of which party to enter into a coalition with to “best aid the AUF’s socialist agenda”.
“For the sake of progress and stable government in the past seven months the AUF entered into a coalition with the ANC. Our decision was based on the premise that we share common ideas; specifically that of a pro-poor and working class agenda. The reality that later confronted the AUF is that the opposite was in fact true. Be that as it may, we also understand the perceived polarised identities and ideological differences between the AUF and the DA.”
About the new coalition Lobese said “it might work or not”.
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“This depends on whether the DA walks the talk. The divorce from the ANC is not based on hatred but rather opposing moral values and principles.
“Our subsequent partnership with the DA is neither based on ideology or policies, nor differences in race, but rather what the DA is able to offer or, even more accurately, its presented promises of social and economic transformation to the people of Bitou local municipality in coalition with the AUF.
“The coalition entered into between the two parties implies that no one party is bigger and more powerful than the other. Were this to be the case, it means one party will prevail over the other. In marriage, when this happens, it ultimately leads to the demise of the marriage or divorce,” he said.
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