HUNDRED DAYS OF GNU

 As the government of national unity (GNU) evolves, South Africa must adapt or suffer the consequences of its choice. The adaptation process, however, is usually plodding, if it happens at all. President Cyril Ramaphosa's call to steer the country into a service delivery-focused direction has thus far enjoyed the support of the markets and significant sections within his party. This is notwithstanding a sophisticated resistance from within the ranks of his party, mainly at the behest of an unfolding succession battle. The internal-to-his-party difficulty he has encountered is no surprise. Since the formalisation of the new split on 16 December 2023, the unity of the governing party on several policy matters has been vulnerable, which is acute in the GNU.

The outcome of the May 2024 elections revealed a new challenge for the ANC: entering a phase in which its coalition partner choices would be measured against the matrices of stabilising the country and securing the continuity of the constitutional and democratic order. Weighing hard on the ANC would also be the interests of Luthuli House juxtaposed with those of its provincial and regional nodal centres. Obstructionist tendencies have, in the process, sought traction and airtime, albeit in potentially malicious compliance parlance.

 

The GNU is 100 days old and counting. The outcome of negotiations yielded a confidence-in-support coalition between the ANC and DA, which was craftily pivoted into a broader GNU arrangement. Notwithstanding the denials, the GNU is undergirded by the continued support of the ANC NEC and the DA Federal Council; the rest are tag-along arrangements to manage the arrangement's optics. 

 

From the start, the GNU was postured or framed to be about getting South Africa working again. It was presented with a narrative that South Africans wanted national unity, as summarised by the statement of intent. The deeper politics to justify it included a message that any coalition that excluded the 20% of the DA in the polls might or is antithetical to national unity. Except for the declined GDP growth, the unabated dysfunction in service delivery sectors, the growing trust deficit of the private sector, and several other state capability-induced matters of governance, a coalition which would have been between parties that split from the ANC only seems to be the crisis which necessitated a condition of a GNU. 

 

The GNU is now 100 days old, and there are emerging matrices to measure its successes, failures, and challenges. As a National unity project in a state without a 'nation' like South Africa, the GNU brought the euphoria and energy reminiscent of the immediate post-1994 era presided over by Nelson Mandela and aptly characterised a rainbow nation by Desmond Tutu. As fate or coincidence would be, performances of national teams within the 100 days, notably Rugby, Soccer and the athletics Olympic team, which returned with medals, confirmed the existence of requisite energy demonstration as an indicator of a content society inside those moments. 

 

Notwithstanding that it is from a low base, the GDP growth numbers and the interest rate reduce the confidence of the SARB in the rate of inflation, which are indicators of an economy that is bottoming up. The 200th day of no load-shedding which coincided with the 100th day of GNU, a restructured approach on how to manage SOEs that are the commanding heights of the economy, a recalibrated outlook towards the network industries (of energy, water, and logistics), and a renewed vigour to manage immigration control as a national security matter are all associable with the cooperative character of the GNU's national executive.

 

Lagging but receiving attention are the crime, unemployment, poverty, and inequality levels that continue to characterise the lived experience of the majority of South Africans, and Africans in particular. While the GNU has recalibrated the template of political power management, it has not yet demonstrated, in the past 100 days, that it has the capability and requisite commitment to recalibrate, if not fracture, the stubborn templates of economic dominance. It will be the review of the medium-term budget expenditure framework, which will show the expression of national unity in financial terms when the Treasury Ministers read it. In the Tshwane Metro, the spatial expression of the city's budget, arguably one of the compelling reasons for the latest and new government of local unity, has demonstrated how coalition arrangements in South Africa are vulnerable. 

 

Suppose the ANC is still pursuing the National Democratic Revolution, and the NDR is still a process of struggle to transfer power to "we the people". In that case, the GNU coalition arrangements would require an evaluation matrix that measures the extent of the power transfer. The matrix should reflect how the power being transferred is political, economic, and social control.  In the last 100 days, the GNU has demonstrated that it is essentially about the respect, promotion, protection, and fulfilment of the Bill of Rights in South Africa. 

 

While it was in its early days, to the extent it was required, the GNU could put an intergovernmental relations approach into the centre of government laced with a national outlook. The requirements to maintain essential national standards or meet established minimum standards for the rendering of a service; maintain economic unity; maintain national security; or prevent that sub-national jurisdiction or organs of state from taking unreasonable action that is prejudicial to the interests of another, were seen to be enjoying the preference of the GNU's national executive. 

 

On the international front, South Africa has seen a rise in sensitivity towards the concept of national interests. The showing at the China-Africa summit by the GNU team of ministers led by President Ramaphosa presented South Africa in pursuit of national interests despite its challenge to becoming a solid nation. The promotion and protection of national sovereignty and constitutional order, well-being, safety and prosperity of "we the people", and a better Africa and world has become the central feature of policy discourse across political parties because the GNU has embraced these as being in the (fragile) nation's interest. 

 

Despite the divisive way the GNU has been projected, more divisions within the political parties are signatories to it. The battle for the centre of South African politics is within all political parties, arguably including those professing to be the left. The GNU decision has always been a leadership call based on how those the moment found them required them to respond. The politics of South Africa, which have evolved through the collaboration of its leadership, will have to enter the competitive realm expected of a vibrant multiparty democracy without ignoring that our past has bequeathed to us a robust yet fragile political system. As the country settles into a GNU mode, it should manage its fragility in the face of unanticipated threats that might otherwise look revolutionary if the exigencies of building a non-racial, non-sexist, united, democratic, and prosperous South Africa are put on the back burner.