DEMOCRACY IN ACTION. Budget debacle proves days of absolute majorities are over. Dr FM Lucky Mathebula

Sunday Times, 23 February 2025

South Africa, once a society where the absolute majority ruled, has now transitioned into a consensus-driven democracy. The DA's rejection of the budget is a clear sign of this shift, where all voices that can muster a 51% majority for an issue have a say, marking a significant moment in our political history. 

While South Africa bargained for a democracy where no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people, the imperfections of democracy marked by dysfunctions and undermined by apathy, voter ignorance, and the vagaries of human nature have compromised the will of the people. Consequently, the right of each citizen’s equal fundamental political power has been gradually guaranteed through the capability of democracy to accommodate such a power.

 

The postponement of the budget speech, an unprecedented first, demonstrated how consensus has become the new political capital, ahead of the absolute majority, to govern. It has shown how the dearth of an ability to deal with surprises, the dividing line separating the good and average leaders from exceptional leaders, is costing the democratic order. Those who become available for moments that require more than self-interest are the new breed of leadership the country now needs.

 

Intense as the GNU coalition’s pressure to project a united front to deal with the growth challenges of South Africa is, internal coalition activities have undermined its capability to forge a South Africa-first pathway. Adopting a national budget, the tool through which the GNU objectives would be translated into fundable programs would always be the ultimate consensus platform to test the genuineness of coalition partners. What seems to have not sunk in with coalition partners is that no political party can call the shots on South Africa’s policies as much as it used to happen before May 2024. Instead, it has become far easier for minority parties to collectively meet or enable the 50 plus 1 threshold to govern, including those with toxic policies or ideas, and to acquire consequential political power.

 

The allocative power of the government of the day, as seen through the prism of the budget, has decisively shifted; it is now firmly in the hands of the GNU coalition. The presence or absence of parties in the coalition, particularly the executive, is evident in how public expenditure reflects their policy aspirations as part of the government of the day. The inability to present the budget has ingrained in the South African psyche that all political parties have indeed lost the absolute majority to govern alone. 

 

The new group of players with whom the President exercises the executive authority of the Republic is undeniably the new centre. Each has a modicum of power to shape governmental outcomes such as the budget, but none have sufficient power to determine things alone. Never in the imagination of those who believe in the rule of the ‘demographic majority’ could they have envisaged a minority being able to thwart political power—as the stopping of presenting the budget has shown. It is as real as climate change.

 

The blanket presumption that the ANC is better off in a GNU coalition is replaced by the realisation that its politics would be better off if they were about appeasing its traditional voting constituencies. SA might now be when the ANC's true policy intents should be functionally unbundled to create unparalleled flexibility of its pre-1994 struggle objectives. The lesson that a band of opposition parties can inflict damage on a hegemonic force such as the ANC has settled in the minds of South Africans, and what happened on 19^th February 2025 won’t be unlearnt.

 

The brute and inconvenient truth is that the DA's opposition to legislation such as the BELA Act, the Expropriation Act, and the NHI could be tangibly expressed through the rejection of their funding. In coalition settings, the approval of the budget is the most essential weapon to extort political concessions. It is the nature of the coalition politics game. In failing to get the 50 plus 1 threshold, the ANC married consensus politics as it separated with absolute power to govern. This relationship might be permanent; exercise is required to build ideational muscle memory. 

 

The mythologised past of majority rule has now met a present that declares that the majority of minorities are here to stay. The 2% VAT increase is not necessarily an issue, but what the collected revenue will be spent on, even if there is no tax increase, will be the new terrain of contestation. The need to know the budget details by each spending department will be the new terrain of contestation.

 

 It is no secret that the treasury's budget reform program is at a point where it must show where it is spent in the country. This means the budget must correct inequalities resulting from SA's tormented past, which is entrenching social and economic dominance. 

 

It remains to be seen how the GNU will collaborate on budget policy issues and create a new dispute resolution process to mitigate the risks of budget stalemates and their impact on service delivery. Also, how to recalibrate the accountability ecosystem whose pressures might be linked to a colonial past which synchronised with the British Parliament or colonial office, and how to restore the true essence of budget approval into chambers that have the legislative authority of the Republic.

When political power needed to be used, those who had it had to learn the painful lesson that it was also decaying.

Dr FM Lucky Mathebula is a public policy specialist and the founder of The Thinc Foundation, which is attached to The Da Vinci Institute, where he is also the Head of Faculty People Management.