ANC To Cut Out DA!? SA Icon Tatiana Smith Switches To Netherlands

And it was a cute us voting thumb, but uh, it was weird. It came across weird. Whatever you say, CIC. The quarter in chief, if you will, commander in quarters. Okay, let's get into this. It's really extraordinary. So, major reporting today from the likes of TimesLIVE and News 24 suggests that the ANC is seriously considering trying to cut the DA out and create coalitions without the party that got the most votes, the Democratic Alliance, in key places, including the metro of Gauteng. This is extraordinary.

For a lot of reasons. The first and foremost being that we have been laboring under the assumption that the ANC probably wouldn't want to help ActionSA, given that it was ActionSA, not the DA, that dragged voters away from the ANC in historic ANC areas, black voting poorer areas. It is ActionSA, it turns out, who was the great shellacca of the African National Congress in the election held last week. And so one would think that the ANC wouldn't want to put ActionSA into power.

To further give more opportunities to ActionSA to prove and impress upon black voters across townships and middle class and working class areas of Gauteng and other places that ActionSA is the solution. But apparently, so Times Live is claiming that at the National Working Committee meeting on Monday of the African National Congress, which is not the most powerful, so the most powerful in the ANC is the NEC, the National Executive Committee, they're meeting tomorrow, Thursday, to decide what to do in their coalition negotiations.

But according to the Times reporting, particularly digital politics editor Lizeka Tundwa, Ramaphosa got on a call with the NWC a few days ago and encouraged the ANC to try and figure out a way to cut the DA out of coalitions that would put the ANC in power. That's extraordinary. It's going to be really, really hard. We're going to talk about the numbers in a second because the DA got so many votes in those key metros in Gauteng that it will probably be hard. Remember, we talked about the Mistra.

Institute Coalitions Barometer. And one of the key findings of the barometer that looked into all the coalitions across South Africa over the last five years was that coalitions which exclude the plurality party, which means the party that got the most votes, are often unstable and often collapse. And I need to double down on this because the ANC accepted a policy document. They accepted agreed-upon principles in May 2016.

2024, the NEC accepted principles that the largest party should lead a coalition and form the government, and the ANC should only enter into coalitions with parties that share its commitment to constitutional values. So, the current fight within the ANC is about to be: is that still their guiding document, the one from two years ago? Some people within the ANC say that it is because that document hasn't been withdrawn or changed or superseded by a new set of guiding principles. And so, by that principle,