After weeks of negotiations, South Africa finally has a government.
The new Government of National Unity (GNU), made up of ten parties in total with seven parties holding cabinet posts, is perhaps unwieldy but it is South Africa’s new reality and something we need to learn to live with.
There has been much criticism of how various cabinet posts have been awarded, with some arguing that the DA has been outmanoeuvred, and given posts that will set the party up for failure.
As is always true, the answer is a bit more nuanced than the simplistic take that the ANC out-negotiated the DA, or that the DA is sleepwalking into disaster.
While the DA did not receive as many cabinet posts as it would have liked (media reports indicated that the party wanted eight seats but secured six), the ones that it did receive are not without power and influence. Outside of posts such as finance and trade and industry, which have ANC ministers, some of the posts which the DA did receive, particularly basic education and home affairs, are important and are ones where a real difference can be made.
Hospital pass
Some critics have said that giving those two posts to DA ministers is something of a “hospital pass,” as they are difficult to fix, with many vested interests present which could block reform. That may be true, but one goes into politics, and by extension, government, not because it is easy, but because it is hard (to paraphrase former US President John F Kennedy).
The DA has been given those two posts – and which are arguably as important as a post such as finance – and they need to make a success of them. It doesn’t help the country or the party if the DA collectively threw their hands in the air and said, “this is too hard”.
The other ministerial posts which the DA now has, including agriculture; forestry, fisheries, and environment and communication and digital technologies, also have the potential for quick wins that the DA can claim.
That said, the path ahead is fraught with danger. The collapse of negotiations to form a government of provincial unity (GPU) in Gauteng shows that the spirit of co-operation is not as common in parts of the ANC as most South Africans would like. In addition, there have been accusations from the DA that the ANC negotiated in bad faith when it came to the distribution of cabinet posts, and the size of the cabinet itself. The difference in ideology between the DA and the ANC could also make any long-term GNU success a pipe dream.
This could all bode ill for the future.
Swiftness
But the swiftness with which a GPU was formed in KwaZulu-Natal provides a contrast to what happened in Gauteng. The situation is a bit different in KwaZulu-Natal, as the ANC was only the second-biggest party in the provincial coalition, with the IFP being the senior party. Co-operation between the DA and the IFP has been more common in the past than between the ANC and the DA. The IFP and the DA were part of the Multi-Party Charter, and as long ago as 2004 the DA and IFP formed an electoral alliance, in the form of the short-lived “Coalition for Change”.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the DA also got the important and strategic post of finance in the province, something that would have been unlikely in Gauteng, or at a national level.
It is quite possible that the ructions in Gauteng, compared to the formation of a government at national level and in KwaZulu-Natal, are because of clashes of personality and ideology, rather than some irreconcilable differences between the two parties. Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi is seen as being close to the EFF and has not been above race-baiting in the past. Lesufi likely has an ideological (and perhaps racial) objection to working with parties such as the DA, and this has probably complicated negotiations in South Africa’s richest province.
But the DA must now seize the nettle and make the best of the situation.
Liberal party in government
Arguably this is the first time in South African history that there is an explicitly liberal party in national government in this country. There have been people who have been liberals close to power in the past – Jan Hofmeyr who was Jan Smuts’s deputy comes to mind – but as a rule, liberals have not been part of formal political power in this country. The significance of the current moment cannot be overexaggerated, and it may not come again if passed up.
In addition, the ANC is weaker than any other time in post-apartheid South Africa. There is a serious risk that if the DA left the GNU and either decided to support the ANC in a confidence-and-supply arrangement or to be an out-and-out opposition party, the ANC would then turn to the EFF and MK. This could see the ANC give in to its worst instincts, or we could simply see the party taken over by its two offspring, putting South Africa on the fast track to becoming another Venezuela.
Of course, there are serious risks for the DA. Junior partners in coalition governments often emerge worse out of such arrangements than senior partners, and this could be the case here. If the country does well over the next five years, and if there is economic growth of 5% and many of the country’s problems start to be solved, voters could decide to reward the ANC rather than the DA. Some DA voters may think that a vote for the DA is as good a vote as one for the ANC, and decide to electorally defect.
Conversely, if things do not go well and South Africa’s decay is not halted or is even accelerated, the DA could also be punished by its voters for governance failures.
These are all risks that the DA faces, but it does now have an opportunity that would have seemed to be the stuff of fantasy even a year ago.
This is a high-risk situation for the DA, but it could also result in “high reward”.
No politician or party made history by shying away from a challenge. The DA is right to have taken on this challenge. The GNU might well collapse in the next few months, but it was right that the DA has taken on the challenge. South Africa would not be well served by a DA that shied away from the hard work that is necessary to fix the country.
[Image: BK Tekane]
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