Sean McLaughlin is an associate of the Free Market Foundation and worked for think tank VoteWatch Europe writing extensively on the issue of Northern Ireland in the EU-UK Brexit negotiations.
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Historian Niall Ferguson states on Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom podcast how history can be noisy, unpredictable and volatile: “… it’s better to read history as a series of forking paths with a keen awareness of other futures that might have happened … there are constant turning points, moments where it could have gone differently.”
Continuing on its current path South Africa’s current Government of National Unity (GNU) may have been one of those points in which South Africa could have made it as a country but did not. That GNU consists of two main parties, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), along with eight others. In the event of the ANC’s electoral loss in 2024, for the first time, I was not surprised to hear that the ANC was pursuing a deal with the DA and shunning the populist adversaries.
However, it did surprise me that it was going for the full coalition option over the “confidence and supply arrangement”. The latter would have seen the ANC take the executive and the DA take the legislature (head of parliamentary committees). This would have allowed the DA to gain political capital and experience of national government. The party could have grown in popularity, seen as the opposition-in-waiting, standing on the sidelines of the ANC’s collapse sometime around 2029.
This argument was well put by Hermann Pretorius at the Institute of Race Relations (IRR). Perhaps the reasons why think-tank land was forwarding this argument are now becoming clear. A century of existence has equipped the ANC with a mastery of negotiation. Speculation has been deep that the DA’s donors forced the party into full government to protect the status quo; time will tell.
My sense at the time of the formation of the coalition was that the DA’s attitude was that it would make the best of a bad deal. That was a cause worth pursuing. Indeed, excellence has been espoused from the DA’s few portfolios in Home Affairs, Education, and others. Yet the fact remains that the party has been out-manoeuvred at every turn.
The size of the cabinet expanded to dilute its influence, kept away from key economic ministries, offered a poor deal in the Gauteng province, and a mayor was deposed from the capital city. Damaging pieces of legislation have been signed into law from the last parliament without consultation, none less than a property expropriation bill. That does not augur well.
We will soon be approaching one year since the GNU formation. South Africa has among the world’s highest crime and unemployment rates. It is not likely that the ANC will turn 180 degrees and now pursue liberal reform. There is a lag time to see reform in law and for it to be felt by voters. It is evidently not forthcoming. Improvements in the DA departments are welcome, but they are not enough to move the dial. For the sake of the country, faith in democracy, then, the DA must now formulate an exit strategy, perhaps to execute within a year of writing. It should put the onus back on the ANC to improve the material circumstances of ordinary people.
DA leader John Steenhuisen should say: “We entered the arrangement on the premise that we could bring about meaningful change in people’s lives. In the departments that we were given, we have made enormous strides in clearing backlogs and digitising our visa system, bringing down the construction mafias, or eliminating pit latrines in schools …
“However, despite our best efforts, we do not believe the ANC is acting in a way which is conducive to improving living standards.
“We have pursued every avenue to amend damaging legislation in the NHI, BELA and the Expropriation Act.
“I hereby put forward a series of commitments (that) need to be met for our continued involvement in the GNU. “A first is that we will be tabling parliamentary amendments repealing the clauses of these acts. The relevant civil society organisations, along with ourselves, will continue to fight these bills in the courts. A second is that we request an exemption ‘card’ so that young people will not be subject to SA’s detrimental labour laws, enabling them to find work.
“If these conditions are not met, will have to return to the opposition benches. We will work with the ANC to help it pass budgets, should the content be satisfactory, and we will block any motions of no confidence brought by opportunism. “Perhaps the ANC will want to renegotiate in 2029.”
This is a high-risk strategy. But if the GNU does not make inroads in cutting unemployment, voters may choose the extremes in 2029. That would be game over. The arrangement will effectively allow the ANC to function as a minority government. The more it pivots to the DA, the less volatile the markets will be. Other things may be negotiated or tabled here or there. Reviving SA will take as much tact as was exercised by those who have wrecked it.
McLaughlin is an associate of the Free Market Foundation and worked for think tank VoteWatch Europe writing extensively on the issue of Northern Ireland in the EU-UK Brexit negotiations. His views don't necessarily reflect those of the Sunday Tribune, Independent Media or IOL