Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi has denied claims by the Democratic Alliance (DA) that the African National Congress (ANC) has blatantly refused to consider giving the party more cabinet seats.
Lesufi said the DA had initially accepted up to three of the 10 cabinet posts but later reversed course and said it wanted five.
However, talks between the two parties to form a government stalled, and the DA did not join the executive branch of the Gauteng Government of Unity (GPU) and withdrew from the coalition government.
Lesufi said it was disappointing that no agreement could be reached in the end.
He says, “We said we would give three. All that was left was which portfolios to give them. When we went back to discuss the names of the three candidates and which portfolios to assign them, they said they were withdrawing the papers, meaning they were no longer interested in having three candidates. They then submitted new papers saying they wanted five.”
“The danger of this arrangement is that the government will not function. We may have lost but the fact is that we got the most votes and that must be reflected in the allocation,” Lesufi added.
Podcast | Interview with Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi on SAfm's Sunrise show:
