Published in the Sunday Times on 23 June 2024
The inauguration of President Ramaphosa as head of state for the 7th Administration is not just a change in leadership, but a significant shift in South African politics. It marks a decisive departure from the past thirty years of an absolute majority governing party dispensation to a multiparty coalition government. This new arrangement, mandated by the South African people, allows the 7th administration leadership to operate outside dogmatic party-political obligations. It elevates the importance of the Constitution as a framework through which their party mandates and interests would be realisable. This can only mean that Ramaphosa took an oath of office and accepted the responsibility of leading a national consensus on unity, growth, and development.
Despite being misconstrued as an agreement between the ANC and the DA, the statement of intent is a
broad enough framework to accommodate all political parties committed to the
liberation promise in the Constitution. This is one of the few RSA documents to
define areas of hegemonic contestation directly out of its Constitution. The
public, though undefined who that is, is at the centre of new and future
efforts of the GNU. The concept of 'We, the people' is starting to find
practical expression throughout the dominant political orientations in South
Africa. The Constitution, now more than ever, ascends to its supreme law
throne and will dictate the cadence of politics. It is now about who better
deliver on the liberation promise in the Constitution, providing a reassuring
governance framework for the nation.
The agreement’s reference
to a professional, merit-based, non-partisan, developmental public service that
puts people first is a clear indication that the parties to the GNU recognise
the centrality of a capable state for the arrangement to succeed. This
commitment to a 'capable state' is a reassurance that the government is
dedicated to having effectively coordinated state institutions with competent
public servants committed to the public good and delivering consistently
high-quality services while prioritising the people in achieving the
nation’s developmental objectives. Despite its omission of the need to pursue
South Africa's National Interests, an overarching beyond-our-borders-facing
policy statement that guides foreign policy activities, it has been able to
respect, protect, promote, and commit to fulfilling the Bill of Rights.
The GNU is about
institutionalising the democratic, political, constitutional, and economic
order. The judicial authority of the Republic, vested in the courts or
judiciary and independent, is regulated through a professional environment and
insulated from the overt pursuit of interests. The legislative and executive
authority of the Republic, constituted of freely elected representatives and
thus a domain of political interests, has been the exclusive domain of an
absolute majority party for a while. In this vortex of authorities, the
economic authority of the Republic has been kept to be an abstract and
amorphous domain lumped into the proverbial ‘market’. The GNU, as the agreement
reads, aims to demystify the market as a non-state authority with the power to
establish and disestablish regimes.
The hegemonic prevalence
of what the ANC has always stood for is unquestionably intact as what
undergirds the form and character of the statement of intent. The profoundly
liberal character of the agreement, reflective of a growing orientation in the
broad church the ANC has declared it is, might be one of the statements of
intent's attraction to liberal parties. This might explain why those stuck in
ideology are growing into its enemies on the one hand, and those believing in
the power of ideas support it to the extent that it creates thematic platforms
for options to be considered. What might require intense attention is the
public education of citizens about the minimum principles of the statement of
intent.
In crafting the National
Dialogue Agenda, which the Minimum Programme of Priorities already provides
broad thematic areas to structure a Social Compact with, the famous 'what
should be done' questions should enjoy less attention in favour of the 'how do we
do it' ones. The power of the ANC's 40% majority in the GNU is the most easily
recognised, widely accepted, and ardently embraced political currency of the
7th Administration. It is a known fact that the thrust of the proper
interpretation of the RSA Constitution is reviled for the power it gives the
ANC as the nexus of political life in the country. The inconvenient
acknowledgement and progressive removal of the ANC as 'number one' from the
dock of the corruption trial, which is liquidating the opposition complex's
moral hold on the hegemony of good governance and the rule of law, will
evaporate with the success of the GNU. This might be a strategic renewal
move by a Ramaphosa ANC presidency.
Notwithstanding, the GNU
is not immune to the seismic shifts internal to the ANC as its dominant power.
But even as the ANC has lost some ground, the gap between it and its putative
rival, the MK Party-EFF complex, has, and because of the GNU decision, only
grown and shows no signs of stopping. Parties that have organised themselves as
the ‘Progressive Caucaus’, most of whom are ANC breakaways, have become the new
opposition node whose success is directly linked to the socio-economic
transformation commitments of the National Dialogue Partners and the GNU's
implementation prowess. The brute truth is that Ramaphosa's primary as ANC
president and term of office ends on 27 December 2027, and history records a
dynamic of the 2028 State of the Nation Address delivered by the new ANC
President at the time.
Although the premium
appeal of the ANC as a liberation movement is shifting commensurate with the
influence or natural attrition of its struggle generation, the inherent
strategic acumen of ANCness is improving its ideational resilience and hurting
its new rivals even more. Turbulence in the political economy issues of South
Africa, even if triggered or exacerbated by the ANC's carelessness and
negligence, has thus far spoiled the ANC and enhanced its position as the nexus
of political life in RSA. The ANC still wants to merge to move to the centre of
state power.
With its experience and
convening power towards national and international objectives, the ANC should
approach the National Dialogue process wearing its liberation movement hat. Its
ideational prowess should be convened first, residing among those of its
members who are its activists in ideational spaces. They are its reserves when
it comes to sustaining its relative hegemonic strength.
The ANC is not new to this context; it might be its first in the condition that it is simultaneously a governing party and liberation movement. It has already organised the diverse middle class, chiefs and kings into a native conference in 1912 and formed itself, masterminded a Bill of Rights in 1923, the African Claims document collection process in 1943, a Congress League Programme of Action in 1949, the Congress of the People in 1955, the Harare Declaration, CODESA, and the 1994 to 1996 Constituent Assembly. The National Dialogue of 2024 is a continuation of an illustrious legacy. The momentum still favours what it stands for; the incident of calling other people 'kaffirs' by the DA MP serves to show how relevant the need for GNU is to the ANC's program of translating the liberation promise into a lived reality. CUT!!!
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