ANC’s fallout with DA escalates as Ramaphosa pushes back on business pressure

Attitudes in the ANC have hardened against a continued power pact with the DA, even as business leaders sent a letter to both parties pleading with them to “stay the course, stay in the room, hold the line, keep building and compromise”.

“The ANC is really gatvol,” said an official at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters, echoing the view of senior party officials canvassed by the Daily Maverick at the weekend.

The ANC and the DA are expected to meet after the ANC’s National Working Committee (NWC) convenes on Monday, 7 April to decide what to do.

“I don’t think this GNU [Government of National Unity] with the DA is continuing,” said the official, who is privy to the top-line zeitgeist.

“There has been a fatal mistake and there must be consequences,” said the ANC’s chief whip at Parliament, Mdumiseni Ntuli.

“You can’t have Cabinet ministers [in the DA] voting against a major national decision agreed by Cabinet [the second Budget]. We must strive to maintain the GNU, but not at all costs, and it can’t be everyone for themselves but only God for all of us,” he said.

“There’s a major irritation [in the ANC] with the DA. What if, for example, an ANC conference is coming up and some Cabinet ministers [from different power blocs] start to defy the President’s direction? How do you deal with that? It could be the end of the movement [the ANC],” said Ntuli, who, along with President Cyril Ramaphosa and his deputy, Paul Mashatile, will determine whether the ANC forms a new GNU or stays in the existing major party pact with the DA.

End of the road

“The strongest sentiment is that if the DA did not vote for the Budget, then what role do they have in government, because they do not support the work of government? At this point, it could spell the end of the road,” said an official close to Mashatile, the head of GNU business in the ANC.

When asked if a letter by prominent business leaders imploring the ANC and DA to cool down and get it together would influence direction, he said, “It will be factored in, especially with regard to the impact on the economy.”

News24 first reported on an impassioned letter from business leaders asking the ANC and DA to “stay the course, stay in the room, hold the line, keep building and compromise”. They wrote that a GNU collapse could have dire consequences for jobs and growth, that there was a lot to lose and that in a complex and hostile environment (following a series of attacks on South Africa by the US), it was a time for unity.

However, the letter has had less impact than initially thought.

On Sunday, Ramaphosa, speaking at an ANC event, said: “Business does not dictate what happens in government. We make our own decisions on everything that advances the interests of our people. Of course, they [businesspeople] are entitled to express their views, wishes and fears. In the end, I want it to be clear that the ANC will not be influenced by what business says.”

Ntuli said, “I received the letter from business with some discomfort. While I see the spirit of patriotism and unity, there’s a major undertone that concerns me. And that undertone is that if the DA is gone, then reforms will be abandoned. But those reforms [energy, logistics, crime and corruption action, as well as local government reform] started in 2021/22 when the ANC was a majority party.

“What the letter is saying to me is business believes the state has no capacity without the DA and that a government without the DA can’t be trusted. In any engagement [we have] with business, I would like to raise what I see as partisan considerations.

“It’s a complex environment, and we need to be sober-minded and calm and demonstrate to the nation we are taking decisions in line with our constitutional values and a commitment to nonracialism.”

Best bet

Business leaders believe the GNU has worked well in eight months and that the political competition has seen many Cabinet ministers lift their game to benefit South Africa.

They consider the large-majority GNU led by the ANC with the DA as South Africa’s best bet to get growth going and stimulate employment, especially at a time when 500,000 (and counting) jobs are on the line because of how relations with the US have bombed since Donald Trump became president.

Business leaders do not believe that either Ramaphosa or DA leader John Steenhuisen want the GNU to end.

The DA does not want to go back into opposition, as its most significant growth path is to show what it can do in the national government, believe business leaders.

A business leader said that cool heads should prevail and that a fight over a 0.5 percentage point VAT increase seemed puerile in the face of the challenge facing SA. The increase will raise R13.5-billion in 2025, a drop in the ocean compared to the expenditure cuts needed to fend off crippling debt and what is needed to fund infrastructure investment and reforms that will turn positive sentiment into growth and jobs.

“The worst thing we [South Africa] can do is upset the apple cart,” said a CEO, who acknowledged that it would be difficult for Ramaphosa to manage a Cabinet in which six ministers had voted against the Budget.

“Last week, I felt we had reached the end of the road with the DA,” said an ANC MP who spoke anonymously as they can’t speak officially. “We are so far from each other.”

The MP said that while caucus members had tried to work with their DA counterparts, they felt the parties’ positions were too far apart. The MP said the DA was trying to push for the devolution of metro rail control and a rethink of BEE, especially insofar as it applied to multinationals.

“We’ve got options,” said the MP. “The EFF was willing to support us [to pass the Budget].”

The MP said many ANC MPs found their DA counterparts “destructive and oppositionist. I’m there where I think it should end, and we consider other options.”

Asked for his view, the ANC secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, said: “I’ve never prevaricated. The GNU will not collapse if they [the DA] leave. We are going to reflect [at the NWC meeting]. It is them who have put themselves in this position.”

Asked if weekend meetings had been held with the DA, he said: “We meet with the DA all the time.”

Context 

The Budget brouhaha shifted the ANC’s attitude toward continuing its power-sharing pact with the DA. The edited transcription below of a recording of the ANC caucus meeting at Parliament on Tuesday, 2 April, ahead of the fiscal framework vote, provides important context. (First reported by TimesLive.)

Mashatile: “If they don’t support the Budget, they don’t deserve to be in the GNU. It doesn’t mean the end of the GNU, [just that] the GNU won’t be with them. They are firing themselves out of the GNU. There’s no one, comrades, as a minister who can implement programmes of a Budget for which they haven’t voted. It can’t be done.

“The chief whip [of the ANC] must make it clear to them so by the time we get to the House they would have gotten this message.”

Ramaphosa: “What the DP [Deputy President] is saying is our general approach. I often say that you must not interrupt your adversary whilst they are making a mistake. The DA have locked themselves into an unenviable position — a cul-de-sac. It’s most unpleasant. I met with John Steenhuisen yesterday evening, and he said, ‘Where do we go now?’ And I said, ‘John, the ball is in your court. You need to work your way out.’

“[Ramaphosa continued the conversation.] ‘We lead this GNU, whether you like it or not. We have a responsibility to show leadership, whether you like it or not, even under difficult circumstances. You call the ANC all manner of names. What seems to please you is you want to be in government and you want to be the opposition in government.’ And I said: ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it.’

“The approach we should take is a tactical one, and of course, in the end, this may well be the end of their participation as they define themselves outside of the GNU. I said [to Steenhuisen], ‘You said if we [the ANC] work with other parties, that’s the end of the GNU. And I said ‘Well, maybe, you will live up to that [risk] yourself. Because that’s what you have wished for. ActionSA and other parties took a much more cooperative and practical disposition.”

Ramaphosa then spoke about the DA negotiating document and said the issues raised would fall flat if the party continued withholding support for the Budget.

“Their [the DA’s] choice will have consequences. Rather than us say, ‘We’re kicking you out’, everyone must see and know, ipso facto, they will have defined themselves out of the GNU. Therefore, I say, don’t interrupt your adversary, whilst they are making a mistake.”

The Daily Maverick has sent detailed questions to the DA and will publish the answers when they are received. DM