The so-called Government of National Unity (GNU) was sold to South Africans as a bold experiment in shared governance.
Yet, less than two years in, the project is already showing its fault lines, particularly around the issue of corruption that has defined and plagued the country's political landscape.
On one side, the ANC is tainted by allegations of an R2 billion corruption scandal at Tembisa Provincial Hospital. On the other, the DA, the self-proclaimed guardian of clean governance, faces allegations of tender fraud in the R1.6 billion Cape Town Municipality.
In a typical democracy, the opposition would be baying for blood. The DA has long thrived on exposing ANC rot. The ANC, too, would have relished highlighting DA hypocrisy.
Yet today, nothing. Both parties have gone mute, tiptoeing around each other’s scandals as if they never happened. The watchdog role has been compromised, not by force, but by the cosy echelons of the GNU.
Stability has trumped accountability. By refusing to call out each other’s alleged corruption, the ANC and DA signal that the coalition matters more than transparency. It is a dangerous precedent when partners in power decide to protect the deal rather than the public purse.
South Africans are not blind. They see a government that looks less like a new dawn and more like a coalition of convenience. If the DA cannot question the ANC over hospital graft, and the ANC will not hammer the DA over municipal fraud, who is left to defend the public interest?
The GNU was supposed to break old habits. Instead, it risks entrenching them. Silence in the face of corruption is not neutral; it is complicity.
If this pattern continues, the GNU will lose the very thing it needs most: legitimacy. Once citizens conclude that “unity” is just code for sweeping scandals under the rug, trust will vanish.
The GNU’s silence is deafening. It should worry every South African who still believes democracy means leaders who answer to the people, not to each other.