Four weeks ago, DA leader John Steenhuisen, Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie and Freedom Front Plus chief whip Corné Mulder sat down for a braai at Mulder's house in Cape Town.
According to McKenzie, who is not a small man, the braai meat was delicious, and Mrs Mulder's potato salad spectacular.
On the agenda for the braai meeting was an attempt to salvage the acrimonious relationship between the DA and the PA with an eye on returning an opposition-led city government to Johannesburg last week. This followed Steenhuisen's bold announcement of a so-called moonshot pact between opposition parties to unseat the ANC after next year's general election.
Steenhuisen is a shrewd politician and he knows he needs the numbers to make the pact work. Mulder is fast becoming the godfather of coalitions in South Africa and plays a pivotal role in bringing smaller parties and the DA, viewed by many of the smaller parties as arrogant and a bully, together in the national interest.
By the "national interest", I merely mean a government that is not corrupt, wants to deliver basic services and subscribes to the rule of law. The bar is pretty low at the moment.
McKenzie has become a major player in coalition politics. With its eight seats in the Johannesburg council (the party received 54 176 votes in the metro in November 2021), the PA has become the kingmaker in the city of gold.
McKenzie, the former-bank robber-turned-businessman (he told me last week he was "very, very rich"), decides who leads Johannesburg, finish and klaar. Without the possibility of the ANC and the DA finding common ground, a 3% party will determine who rules Jozi.
Mulder knew this and wanted to see if he could save the city from another disastrous ANC/EFF city government with a puppet mayor from a 1% party. The ANC's pact with the EFF in Gauteng must count as one of the most bizarre and destructive political deals in the party's history. I reckon it will cost the ANC votes next year, but that is a topic for another day.
There are different versions of the braai meeting, but even the differences are telling.
Everyone agrees the food was delicious and Mrs Mulder's potato salad an undisputed highlight of the evening.
McKenzie says he and Steenhuisen "shook hands" on a deal to save Johannesburg. The deal proposed by the PA leader was that the DA gets the speaker and executive positions in the city council, while the mayor comes from ActionSA or is McKenzie himself.
According to McKenzie, Steenhuisen agreed in principle but said he would have to get the deal approved by the DA's federal council, chaired by Helen Zille.
McKenzie says he was shocked a few days later when the DA's Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga attacked him and the PA in public for wanting to cut backroom deals. He saw this as a betrayal of the spirit in which the braai was held.
This triggered McKenzie's deputy and MMC for roads and transport in Johannesburg, Kenny Kunene, to launch a vitriolic attack on Msimanga on social media, in which he accused Msimanga of corruption.
Steenhuisen remembers the braai differently. He says he would never have shaken hands on a deal that would see the PA getting the mayorship in Johannesburg. He agrees on the reason for the braai meeting and that it was important for the DA to unite the opposition ahead of 2024.
Steenhuisen says he made it clear to McKenzie around the fire that the DA couldn't bring the PA into a coalition while the party was propping up ANC governments in nine municipalities.
This also became the DA's official position.
Mulder's recollection is that Steenhuisen listened to McKenzie's proposal (of a PA or ActionSA mayor) and asked for six days to discuss it with the DA's federal council. "John didn't say yes or no, but he also didn't say it was an absurd idea."
Mulder denies Steenhuisen told McKenzie there was no possibility of a deal if the PA did not distance itself from the ANC. "That would have been strange anyway, since the DA never made such demands of parties like the UDM in Nelson Mandela Bay."
According to Mulder, things went awry when McKenzie announced he would be available for mayor of Johannesburg, and Msimanga attacked him in public.
At a follow-up meeting at the DA's Bruma headquarters, all the opposition parties, the PA included, agreed that they should come to an agreement, and McKenzie no longer insisted on the mayorship. Steenhuisen was flanked by DA colleagues and said he could take no decisions but had to take suggestions back to the federal council.
A few days later, on 22 April, the DA wrote a letter to its partners, insisting that the PA cuts all ties with the ANC in all municipalities countrywide before it would re-enter into a coalition agreement with the party in Johannesburg.
This blew McKenzie's top. "The DA doesn't tell us who our friends should be. I don't hate the ANC and I don't hate the DA. The DA will not tell you that the PA supported their budget in Tshwane and their mayor in Karoo Hoogland. We are not our parents' generation that will be told what to do."
McKenzie, who vacated his position as Central Karoo mayor last week and will focus the next 12 months on building the PA's national footprint, says, "How the DA treats us now will inform how we respond the day after the 2024 elections." He firmly believes the PA will be the kingmaker nationally, and he may not be wrong.
He claims the PA has 330 000 registered members, and he will aim for "1.5 million votes or about 8%" next year. He is actively doing ground-level campaigning in the Western Cape and threatens to bring down the DA's support in the province to below 50%.
"Watch Oudtshoorn, Witzenberg, Saldana and the George by-election. Zille knows we are coming for her, she is smart," says McKenzie, who travels with 15 bodyguards in a black, tinted Mercedes-Benz van.
Mulder is perplexed about the DA's reaction to McKenzie. "Anyone who knows Gayton knows you don't give him an ultimatum. He will do exactly the opposite."
And the rest is history. On Friday, the PA gifted their eight votes in Johannesburg to Al Jama-ah councillor Kabelo Gwamanda to become the ANC's chosen mayor. The remainder of the opposition parties put forward ActionSA's Funzi Ngobeni for mayor and the DA persisted with Mpho Phalatse.
"There are 18 political parties in Johannesburg. The ANC had their partners voting with them, ActionSA united the other opposition parties and the DA stood alone. That is significant," Mulder tells me.
But he hasn't lost hope altogether for an opposition pact and will continue his efforts to bring players like the DA and the PA together.
Steenhuisen says it's too soon to say the moonshot pact is dead. He is planning a series of meetings with parties, "represented in Johannesburg and those outside".
And McKenzie? He spent the weekend in Orania, praising the white supremacists' clean town and effective local government system, as the first potential scandal about Gwamanda's business dealings emerged.
Something tells me Mrs Mulder is going to prepare a lot more potato salad between now and May 2024.
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