Johannesburg - The ANC in Gauteng ruled out any possibility of a coalition government with smaller parties in the provincial legislature after the May 8 national elections.
The party believes the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC president during its elective conference in Nasrec in 2017 has ignited fortunes for their election campaign.
These were the sentiments expressed by Gauteng ANC head of elections Lebogang Maile during an interview with Independent Media.
Maile was adamant his party would regain the 10% in votes they lost during the 2016 national local government elections, which saw the ruling party losing metros City of Joburg and Tshwane to the DA/EFF coalition. But Maile said coalitions were a thing of the past for his party in Gauteng.
“We are not thinking about a coalition. It does not work. It is messing up service delivery,” he said.
Maile said they wanted an “overwhelming majority” of support at the polls. According to him, the Ipsos and Institute for Race Relations (IRR) polls predictions were “an indication that the ANC is the most popular party in the country”.
“Ipsos research sampled at least 3000 people while IRR polled 1000 people.
“It is one of the good indications of our prospects in the upcoming elections,” Maine said.
Opposition parties are targeting Gauteng after the ANC’s poor performance during the 2016 local elections.
The DA has even moved its party headquarters to the east of Joburg.
Ramaphosa has in recent days been vigorously campaigning in the province, from door-to-door to engaging with voters on trains, where he was stuck for hours in Tshwane.
“It is true that the president is always in Gauteng but that is due to a decision of the ANC national executive. It is called the Gauteng Thursday - where all members of the top six and national executive committee descend to our province.
“They would then be deployed in different parts of the province to conduct door-to-door campaigns.
“The president is the face of our campaign. He is an asset to the ANC,” Maile said.
Maile poured scorn on the decision of the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) to approach the courts to file for default judgment against defaulting motorists, saying it appeared like “sabotage on the part of Sanral” to act against motorists on the eve of elections.
Sanral suspended its resolution to pursue motorists to allow Ramaphosa to continue dealing with the impasse over gantries, which were among the reasons the ANC lost votes in 2016.