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Building a national democratic society should be basis of having a GNU.

The ANC’s loss of absolute power to govern has necessitated its transition into a coalition government mode. This loss carries significant implications, representing a substantial territorial gain for the opposition complex on all fronts. Despite the 40% performance of the ANC at the polls being derived from a low voter turnout base, it remains the majority party, albeit below the absolute power threshold. The political power situation the ANC faces is markedly different from previous episodes; it must now share its remaining power with those seeking to claim it. 


Following the May 2024 elections, in which all political parties performed below 50%, RSA political leaders agreed that a coalition government arrangement would ensure the stability of the democratic order. This decision marked a monumental shift in the political power structure of South Africa. The opposition complex, previously occupied by parties to the right of the ANC, now sees the MK Party, with its ambitious leftist posture, as the official opposition. This new state of affairs appears to have favoured the liberal order cohorts of the dominant political formations in RSA. 


In hegemonic terms, the liberal right and the right increased their influence by sustaining the ANC into political power to the extent that it pursues economic policies that are friendly to entrenching the private sector as the power node with which the economic authority of the Republic vests. In turn, the ANC leadership focused on growth and eased its domestic political capital and social control by opening the economy to foreign investment and ideas through the GNU bait. The current GNU power configurations are mutually beneficial in terms of state-business trust deficit reduction. This notwithstanding the hegemonic costs to ANC and DA as sufficient consensus-determining partners in the GNU arrangements.


The fundamental policy issues of the NHI, the BELA Act, and the privatisation or unbundling of SOEs in network industries demonstrate deep fissures in the GNU. The resultant tension on policy issues might be a contestation space characterised by the concealment of the ANC and DA's desire to hegemonically prevail as GNU partners. The transformation of RSA society requires a persistent sensitivity to reciprocal recognition by GNU partners of their core constituency's lived experience and a tormented or advantaged past. 


The brute truth is that the GNU, left to finish its term of office, will redefine the character of whoever governs. Those going to a hegemonic space will ideologically alter the orientation of the state towards government. Parties that have modelled themselves as perpetually anti one policy or another or anti-the system will soon be relegated to their comfort zone, opposing the system. Political power begins with embracing the system that embodies the power of enforcement and the coercive force of the institutions that direct the power. 


While the ANC may view the GNU as a tactical move, it should also recognize it as a significant power terrain reconfiguration in RSA. As a liberation movement, the ANC's actions and decisions are crucial in shaping the future of South African politics. Its political legitimacy capital sustains its relevance, and it must be mindful of the lessons from other countries with a similar post-conflict trajectory. 


In any case, the vision of a stable constitutional and democratic order, a predominantly but not completely bifurcated political system of governance and development, led by two politically advanced ideological or otherwise power blocs hegemonically competing head-to-head, seems like the most likely replacement for the absolute majority party must govern system that dominated South Africa over the past three decades. The historic liberalism ties between the ANC and DA won’t be severed. However, given the inevitable fragmentation of the non-liberalism embracing sections of the RSA political spectrum, less symbiosis and more sclerosis will ensue as the liberal order competition for dominance heats up. 

Fortunately for the ANC, it can reverse the tide of being ideologically swallowed, and not because claimants of the liberal ideological space are sophisticated, but purely because it can't proffer a succinct ideological alternative; the creation of a national democratic society provides a safe sieve to pursue something other than being overtly liberalist. What oxygen is to lungs, political hegemony is to the GNU. Those outside it might point faults at it, but few have been able to show the alternative to it, save their inclusion. Suppose the ultimate consensus is that it should be about creating a national democratic society, then the current Constitution, save for the property clause discontents, is the legal framework. CUT!!!

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