The nail-biting over whether the Government of National Unity (GNU) will fall apart has been endless. Yet the arrangement has inherent stability, as the two largest parties in the arrangement, the ANC and DA, have no better course of action.
The leaders of both parties have said a South Africa in which the GNU fell apart would be ghastly. That shared view is the glue that holds the GNU together.
The ANC knows that the DA will only pull out under the most extreme circumstances, and the threat to do so can only be made once. Both parties know that each has no better place to which they can move. The DA went into the GNU to avoid, in the words of the DA’s leader, John Steenhuisen, “a future too ghastly to contemplate,” that is ruled by a “doomsday” coalition of extremist comrades.
The ANC, certainly under President Cyril Ramaphosa, knows how difficult and damaging it would be to work with its former colleagues in either of the radical comrade parties, the Economic Freedom Fighters or uMkhonto weSizwe. Added to that, the pragmatists like Ramaphosa are fully aware that having the DA in the coalition arrangement settles the markets and therefore makes borrowing and a lot else far easier.
Last week Ramaphosa was reported by Business Day as saying that he was sure the GNU would last its term and said it was vital for the country’s future. Its collapse, he said, would be “ghastly” for the country and cast it out into the wilderness.
New era
In fanciful minds the GNU is about a new era of feel-good consensus politics. But it is not about consensus, as there is no tangible joint programme. So far, the glue that binds the GNU gives the ANC the political room to manoeuvre and does not require consensus. After all, the ANC knows that the DA, its largest partner in the arrangement, is not going anywhere. This glue also allows the ANC to get away with far more than it could expect, after it only received 40 percent of the vote on May 29th.
So the ANC can go ahead and push for its National Democratic Revolution. That helps Ramaphosa internally among the comrades who virtually choke at a deal with the DA. In the space of the two and half months that the GNU has been in existence, the ANC has repeatedly tested the DA’s limits on what it will tolerate. These have all been matters of serious consequence.
First, the ANC seriously shortchanged the DA in giving it a disproportionately small number of seats in proportion to its share of the vote. The DA only received six cabinet positions for its 22 percent share of the vote on May 29th. Yet the ANC gave itself 22 Cabinet posts, although it received only slightly less than double the DA vote. In a more equitable distribution, the DA should have received at least 11 Cabinet posts.
Then, late last month, President Ramaphosa signed a new Public Procurement Act, which goes directly against DA principles. It will, when implemented, almost certainly mean the taxpayer will not receive value for money on what the state buys. Set-asides for preferred groups based on race and other criteria will mean a lot less competition in supplying the government, as some will be excluded from bidding. And because this is the law and the DA is part of the GNU, the DA has no choice but to go ahead and fall in line with a renewed push for racial nationalism.
On the eve of the election, Ramaphosa signed the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act, which would essentially allow for the total takeover by the government of all healthcare in the country. The Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, is a true believer in the NHI and from his statements, he is not keen on discussion and compromise with the medical schemes and hospital groups. So, although the dream is unfunded, there is still a possibility that some aspects of the NHI might go ahead. It is raising anxiety about the future of healthcare in the country unless there is a prospect of improving delivery in the state health sector. And it might just all go ahead on the DA’s watch.
Lasting damage
Steenhuisen has said solutions to avoiding lasting damage from the NHI would have to be found: solutions to the challenge of delivering adequate healthcare to all. But the party has not made the sort of noise it should have made after Motsoaledi went on the offensive on the NHI last month.
Last week Ramaphosa signed the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act (BELA) into law. This is a direct challenge to many Afrikaans communities who want their kids to be educated in their mother tongue. The implementation of BELA would see language and admission policies at schools taken away from school boards and given to civil servants. In a deal with the Afrikaans groups, Solidarity and AfriForum, Ramaphosa has agreed to further consultations, but there has been no stay of execution on the Act itself.
It might well be the case that Ramaphosa signing a succession of Acts to build the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution has been all part of his efforts to placate the comrades in his party, and show he has not given it all away now that he is in government with the DA. But that does not mean the party is not seriously committed to their implementation. At some point their implementation might not be delayed and fudged.
Now that much of the radical legislation is on the books, the DA might be powerless to stop its implementation. At some point, it will be too late to say that Ramaphosa is simply having to feed the left, which feels betrayed by the deal with the DA.
Game theory
In game theory, the discipline which attempts to determine the actions that should be followed in competitive interactions, there is a stable position from which players have no incentive to move. The “Nash equilibrium,” named after the mathematician John Nash, is where both players have the best chance of achieving the outcomes they want by remaining where they are. And that is where we find the ANC and DA today.
The statements of both parties about avoiding ghastly futures show they have similar motivations, meeting the criteria for a Nash equilibrium. But according to the game theory experts, the Nash equilibrium does not always mean that the optimal strategy for an individual player is chosen. In the well-known prisoner’s dilemma, lack of co-operation means that both prisoners decide to confess to obtain lower sentences: a Nash equilibrium. However, they would do even better if they were able to communicate.
In the GNU, the ANC and the DA are in a prisoner’s dilemma, but the ANC is obtaining the larger payoffs because it is in charge. The DA cannot just brush this off and say it can’t get everything it wants and needs to compromise. It had best play a far tougher and more outspoken game.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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