Mashatile likens dealing with DA in GNU to handling a crocodile, must do so with 'eyes wide open'
Tensions between the ANC and the DA reached boiling point last week, when it, along with the Freedom Front Plus, refused to back the fiscal framework and a value-added tax (VAT) increase.
Deputy President Paul Mashatile addressed the 32nd Commemoration on Chris Hani at the Chris Hani Memorial Site in Sabalele Village, Cofimvaba, Eastern Cape on 10 April 2025. Picture: @PresidencyZA/X
CAPE TOWN - Deputy President Paul Mashatile has likened dealing with the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Government of National Unity (GNU) to handling a crocodile.
Mashatile on Thursday briefly digressed from his memorial speech for slain SACP leader, Chris Hani, to affirm that the GNU would not collapse, with or without the DA.
Mashatile said that the GNU would be reconfigured as the African National Congress (ANC) invites other parties to join the coalition.
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Tensions between the ANC and the DA reached boiling point last week, when it, along with the Freedom Front Plus, refused to back the fiscal framework and a value-added tax (VAT) increase.
Mashatile said that at the time, he expected DA ministers to quit.
The deputy president made light of claims that he's always been opposed to the DA's participation in the GNU and still wants to see them gone, particularly after last week's dissension.
Speaking in the Eastern Cape on Thursday, Mashatile said that in his dealings with the DA, he was leaning on the teachings of Hani during apartheid-era negotiations with an oppressive government of how to cross a river when you are staring down a crocodile.
"When you deal with a crocodile, you must deal with it with your eyes wide open. I'm lying on its back, to cross the river."
Mashatile said the GNU had faced many challenges since its formation and none of it had led to its collapse.
He said that the GNU was also not reliant on the DA for its success.
"It’s not an agreement of the ANC and the DA. It's an agreement of ten parties and we want to make sure when we deal with issues in the GNU, we deal with these issues as all parties, all of us, working together."
Mashatile also assured the ANC's alliance partners, the SACP and COSATU, who’ve been opposed to the DA's inclusion in the GNU from the start, that the party would be repairing their fraught relations, too.
The ANC is due to meet with the DA for a reset of relations over the weekend, as the party enters a third day of individual talks with political parties to reestablish a broad working consensus.