Parties in hung Thabazimbi Municipality begin coalition talks

Some Thabazimbi residents form a queue to cast their special in the municipal wide by-election at the Regorogile SASSA Offices on December 3, 2024.

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Political parties in the hung Thabazimbi Local Municipality in Limpopo have started talks on the formation of a coalition government.

Seven political parties got a share of the council’s 23 seats in Wednesday’s by-election.

The by-election is the third electoral process to produce a hung council, since the 2016 local government election.

The African National Congress (ANC) Provincial Secretary Reuben Madadzhe says they are seeking a mandate from the party’s national leadership to finalise the coalition talks.

Madadzhe says, “We are open to engage with any party that wants to engage with the ANC but there are parties that we are talking to, we are so sure that we are going to govern with another party. We had informal engagement with them, what we need to do is to go to the formal structure of ANC and seek proper Mandate so that we can conclude over the weekend.”

The Democratic Alliance’s (DA) head of constituency in the Waterberg region, Desiree van der Walt says the federal executive will decide the way forward.

She says, “Thabazimbi is in so much trouble that one has to be very very careful how to choose your partners. You have to look at various facts, the first is that we don’t have finance, we not going to win major national government.”