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In conversation with Mike Sham, Prof William Gumede recently argued that two risks facing the government of national unity (GNU) were whether the ANC could shift from a majoritarian mode of operation to a consensus mode; and whether internal contestation in the ANC would undermine the arrangement.
Those banking on the GNU as the starting point of a reformist trajectory should take these important questions to heart. The ANC has clearly not yet taken this on board. Doubling down on National Health Insurance, the president’s signing of the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act (over the head of his education minister), pledging ongoing amity to Russia and now the affirmation that expropriation without compensation remains a policy goal, all attest to this.
The rationale expressed by many, in the media and in business, for a DA-ANC agreement was that only the DA’s backing would secure the nominally reformist incumbency of President Cyril Ramaphosa. Without it, the ANC would turn to the EFF and MK, with all the contempt for constitutional governance and economic rationality that course implied. Yet the president’s own actions have not been conducive to the success of the GNU.
While it may be a matter of political satisfaction for the ANC (and the president) to assert their “hegemony”, this comes at the expense of developing the mutual trust − and facing the hard choices − that growth and development require. It is imperative that a coalition (or a face-saving “unity” arrangement) is able to deliver wins to each participant, along with compromises, and gains for the country as a whole. The current trajectory is unlikely to produce this.
Instead, it risks − this is probably the intention − merely reproducing the same policy suite that brought SA to its current impasse. Perhaps the ANC hopes to reorganise itself for a future election victory, and the GNU is merely a convenient tactical necessity. But so far there is little to indicate that it is taking the imperatives of co-operation seriously, and even less to indicate that it is contemplating serious reform.
It may be worth recalling that in the run-up to the election the DA was frequently taken to task for rejecting co-operation with the ANC “for the good of the country”. It has ultimately agreed to the co-operation which its interlocutors demanded. It is perhaps time that those who made these demands on the DA do likewise in respect of the ANC and Ramaphosa.
Terence Corrigan
Institute of Race Relations
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