Despite the jostling and heated arguments, the parties managed to make significant progress by agreeing that there was a need for a coalition of opposition parties to try to topple the ANC and keep the EFF out of the Union Buildings.
Prof William Gumede will chair the negotiations.Opposition parties have come out of their first day of their convention having agreed on a coalition government ahead of next year’s election.
Such a pre-election multiparty coalition agreement is a first of its kind in the modern South Africa, according to the convention chair Prof William Gumede.“Essentially the coalition has been built based on today. There is a coalition and this is the first pre-electoral coalition in the modern era of South Africa that has actually been consolidated,” said Gumede.
They used the first day of the two-day convention to come up with priorities that their coalition will focus on should they garner enough votes to establish a government after next year’s election. This was a significant outcome of the convention of opposition parties that had glaring disagreements going into the meeting, Gumede said.
DA leader John Steenhuisen had to make compromises on several issues including the name change and extending invitations to other opposition parties.
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