In his book Common Sense, Thomas Paine famously wrote that “(i)t is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies”. Paine clearly did not have South Africa’s Government of National Unity in mind as it remains profoundly clear that the GNU still battles to unite behind common sense governance.
But this national coalition certainly has the numbers: ministers from the ANC, DA, FF+, PA and co all cramped behind one podium in a record-sized cabinet. What it lacks however, is proof that this governmental unity produces strength and results where it matters most.
The five basic gauges—growth, jobs, safety, debt, poverty—still point south. If those arrows don’t twitch upward soon, no slogan about togetherness will save the partners from being judged as one underperforming bloc with no tangible distinction from the ANC government that preceded them.
The numbers that refuse to budge
Let’s start with a figure no politician can spin away: real GDP per head. In 2015 we produced about R112 000 (roughly $6 100 in constant dollars). By 2020 the pandemic had shoved that down to about R103 000 (≈$5 600). Today it claws back to around R105 000 (≈$5 700), still below the starting line in 2015. In plain English, the average South African is poorer than a decade ago and poorer than a decade before that.
Safety? The murder rate sat at 33 per 100 000 people in 2015. It bumps to 34 in lockdown-warped 2020, then vaults to 44 now. If you want a picture, that’s enough people murdered each year to fill Newlands Cricket Ground or Dobsonville Stadium. That is our annual homicide load.
Jobs? The expanded unemployment rate (which includes everybody without work plus those who have given up) was already brutal at 36 percent in 2015. It breaks 42 percent in 2020 and edges past 43 percent this year.
Near-half the labour force is either idle or discouraged. No real progress despite promises of rapid reform since the GNU started a year ago.
Debt? National Treasury hopes to “stabilise” gross government debt at around three-quarters of GDP. Back in 2015 we owed about fifty cents on the rand. We now owe seventy-five. It takes raw faith to call that stability.
Poverty? Sixty-three percent of South Africans live below the upper-bound national poverty line. In 2015 it was 55 percent. The pandemic nudged it past the halfway mark and it has not come back ever since.
These five indicators are five red flashing warning lights. The GNU inherited this mess, but the mess does not care who inherited whom, especially if the mess has a real-time personal effect on ordinary South-Africans and their livelihoods. If these trends remain flat or worse, tilt down, ordinary citizens will not give a pass to any party in the unity tent in the foreseeable future. They will see one government and the continued failure to correct course.
The public judges on impact, not promise or process. If factories close in Gqeberha, nobody cares that the government “has a plan”. If a hungry voter in Bolobedu hears that the DA is “pushing hard” inside the Treasury but sees no new job, it makes no difference to her.
Coalition nuance washes away in the cold shower of an empty wallet. The public wants to see tangible results in their lives rather than crafty political jargon leading to no actionable outcomes.
Can the tide still turn?
Economic recoveries are not unicorns that magically appear out of thin air. They follow certain laws of nature. You need reliable electricity, clear rules and policy protecting private investment, schools that teach numeracy, policing that keeps the streets open, and a fiscus that pays its bills without borrowing the future away.
The GNU’s first year has produced plenty of plans touching each point. What it has not produced is momentum you can feel and progress you can see.
You see it again in water infrastructure, where the freshly unveiled “Blue Drop Recovery Plan” wins cabinet applause, yet taps in Johannesburg still sputter at the hands of rusting, declining infrastructure. The same pattern repeats on rail reform, where the cabinet signs off new white papers, yet grain exporters still pay truckers because locomotives sit idle.
If real GDP per head edges up by, say, one percent next year, will people notice? Probably not, unless that percentage comes with reliable trains, water in the taps, and streets where a spaza shop can stay open after sunset without a security guard. Until growth becomes tangible and outpaces population growth, the electorate will see modest gains as statistical fog attempting to cloud the roots of the problems we face which have been prevalent for years.
The DA knows this better than anyone. For years it sold itself as the party of clean audits and competent managers. Now it holds several crucial portfolios but cannot point to a single metric turned green. Its managers might be “trying their level best,” but national office is a cruel classroom and the jury is already making up its mind. Same goes for the Freedom Front Plus, Patriotic Alliance.
What would success actually look like?
So what would achievable success actually look like? Not miracles, but realistically achievable success. Three modest wins would shift the mood: first, a logistics turnaround with rail corridors and ports running at least 70 percent of their design capacity so that exports move on steel wheels instead of clogged highways and commuters can cheaply get to work.
Second, a two-point drop in the expanded unemployment rate by 2026.
Third, visible policing in touch with the local community’s needs that knocks the murder rate back to pre-pandemic levels. None requires world-class brilliance, just competent common sense basics done at scale.
A logistics turnaround means clearing the vessel queue in Durban, fixing the signalling on the coal and grain lines, and letting private freight operators onto branch tracks and ensuring commuter rail is reliable and sustainable. Jobs require changing strict labour laws and cutting red tape for business.
Crime reduction comes down to filling detective posts, fixing DNA backlogs, and backing community patrols with proper radio networks and creating public and private collaborative initiatives to ensure collective safety. These are not secrets and these things have been tried and tested and they work.
If the GNU can post progress here, progress you can feel in grocery prices or on an evening walk, public faith may extend its warranty. But if June 2026 arrives with the same unemployment, the same jammed ports, and yet more piling debt, the backlash will not distinguish between policy authors. It will paint every party in the coalition the same dull colour: failure grey.
Patience is not bottomless
South African is patient, but its patience is not bottomless. The GNU can still make Thomas Paine’s line ring true—unity as strength—yet the window is rapidly narrowing. If, by this time next year, trains are moving, streets and communities feel safer, and a few hundred thousand more people have real lasting jobs, the country may forgive the initial teething pains of coalition rule.
If not, voters will exercise their own common sense and we’ll undoubtedly see other political choices popping up before the next local government election. The choice sits with the ministers now: deliver something solid and tangible or watch the nation turn the page without them, without blinking.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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