- The ActionSA leader accuses mayor Dada Morero of failing to treat his party and other coalition partners with respect.
- Herman Mashaba says the party was never in a coalition with the ANC and only supported it on an issue-by-issue basis.
- He says the ANC’s governance failures and lack of consultation led to the breakdown and ultimately to the removal of ActionSA’s speaker.
The fallout between ActionSA and the ANC in Johannesburg has reached a point of no return.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said his party had ended its working relationship with the ANC in the metro following the removal of Nobuhle Mthembu as speaker of the council.
Mthembu, an ActionSA councillor, was ousted in a motion supported by the ANC, the EFF and the DA last week – a move Mashaba described as the ANC’s response to ActionSA’s refusal to vote for the ANC’s budget.
In an interview with City Press this week, Mashaba said the relationship between the two parties had been deteriorating for months and was now “completely over”.
“We were never coalition partners,” Mashaba said.
We always made it clear; we were voting with them on an issue-by-issue basis. But now, the only relationship the ANC and ActionSA have in Johannesburg is that we sit in the same council chamber. That’s it.
Herman Mashaba
A slow breakdown over governance and budgets
Mashaba explained that ActionSA had initially agreed to vote with the ANC on certain matters after the ANC pleaded for the party’s support to cushion their political vulnerability.
“They said they wanted to ‘cushion their vulnerability’ in the event they had issues, especially after their problems with the EFF in Ekurhuleni,” Mashaba said.
He said the relationship began to show cracks when the ANC passed a controversial electricity surcharge of R230 without proper consultation. Though the ANC allegedly promised to reconsider the surcharge in the February adjustment budget, ActionSA was not consulted – and the surcharge remained in place.
“Two days before council, that’s the only time we saw the adjustment budget,” Mashaba said.
My team had been asking to see it for weeks. We were not consulted. Not on the surcharge, not on anything else.
Herman Mashaba
He accused mayor Dada Morero of failing to treat ActionSA and other coalition partners – including the EFF, IFP and Patriotic Alliance – with respect.
“Even the new budget; we were never consulted. Dada Morero just decided to come out and present it,” he said.
“We’ve made it clear to the ANC provincial leadership that we will not vote for a budget we did not see or contribute to.”
Mashaba added that he had personally warned ANC provincial leaders that if the matter was not resolved by May, ActionSA would vote against the budget.
“I gave them until the end of May to fix this, and when they didn’t, we told them: ‘If you remove our speaker, we will live with it. But we’re not going to compromise ourselves or the residents of Joburg.’”
READ:
‘ActionSA betrayed us and overstated its importance,’ says ANC, as Joburg speaker is removed
‘We will not be blackmailed’
Mashaba said ActionSA’s refusal to vote for the budget and its opposition to the ANC’s governance style was rooted in principle, not politics. He said he was not worried that tension in Joburg would cascade into the City of Tshwane, where ActionSA holds the mayorship.
“We will not be blackmailed,” he said. “If the ANC wants to take what’s happening in Joburg and make it a problem in Tshwane, that’s their decision. I won’t lose sleep over it.”
He confirmed that the party’s working relationship with the ANC in Tshwane was still in place – for now. But he said any attempt by the ANC to replicate Johannesburg tension in Tshwane would be telling.
“In Tshwane, we work together. But if they want to bring the chaos of Joburg to Tshwane, that’s their call. It will just prove our point,” Mashaba said.
He also dismissed the ANC’s claims that ActionSA “overstated its importance” in the Joburg council.
“We told them at the start – you don’t need us. But they came to us because they were vulnerable. We agreed to help, but we were clear: we won’t compromise on governance or corruption.”
On Mthembu’s removal and gender criticism
Mashaba pushed back strongly against suggestions that ActionSA had failed to protect its former speaker, Nobuhle Mthembu, particularly amid claims that gender may have played a role in her removal.
“Anyone bringing gender into this is being ridiculous,” he said. “Our decision was to protect her from abuse, not abandon her.”
He explained that Mthembu had been deliberately undermined by the ANC executive.
Reports were sent to her late, meetings weren’t being attended, and she was being compromised by the executive.
Herman Mashaba
“We knew the public would start to blame her for failures that weren’t hers.”
Mashaba said the party regularly met with its speakers in Joburg and Tshwane to assess performance and challenges. He said they saw that Mthembu was being isolated and sidelined.
“You can speak to her director – reports would be brought late, meetings wouldn’t be scheduled, section 79 meetings were ignored by ANC members of the mayoral committees,” he said.
“She couldn’t act against them because they were in the executive. This wasn’t governance. It was sabotage.”
Despite the removal, Mthembu remains an ActionSA councillor in the Johannesburg legislature.
“She hasn’t lost her job. She’s still a councillor and remains an important part of our team,” Mashaba said.
READ:
Herman Mashaba blasts Joburg's administration: ‘It’s a one-man show and lacks accountability'
Eyes on 2026: ‘We must emerge as the biggest party’
Mashaba said the experience in Johannesburg had hardened ActionSA’s resolve to pursue outright power in next year’s local government elections.
“We’ve learnt our lesson. We will never again work with any party unless we are the leading party,” he said.
“In 2026, if there are coalitions, there must be a proper binding agreement – not letters of intent. And that agreement must be made public before any voting happens.”
He said voters should trust ActionSA to govern ethically and transparently.
“We want to govern. But we want to govern well. And we want to respect all parties and serve all communities – especially the poor ones who get forgotten.”
What lies ahead
The removal of Mthembu has opened a new chapter in Johannesburg’s political landscape, and ActionSA is preparing to step into its new role as a vocal opposition party.
“We are ready to hold them accountable,” Mashaba said. “There’s no going back.”
