Are the midwives up to the task of delivering a viable new government for SA?

Owing to the exigencies of the “hung” outcome of the national and provincial elections held on 29 May, South Africa’s politicians are currently in the process of trying their hands at midwifery to give birth to a new form of government to replace the “dominant party state” that has been in place since 1994.

The hegemony of the ANC has ended – its support has declined precipitously and its leadership has no stomach for going it alone in a minority government; it needs to renew and rebuild its support. 

It must, to survive at all, reverse its decline in popularity that saw 17% shaved from its support in 2024.

Many are calling the infant that is about to be born a “government of national unity” or GNU, but this is a misnomer. The new form that is emerging is either going to be a lonely boy-child best called a minority government, or a gregarious girl-child that could be dubbed a multi-party coalition government or MPCG.

It is true that, at the beginning of the birth process, President Cyril Ramaphosa did, late on the evening of 6 June, invite all parties represented in parliament to participate in a GNU properly so called, but, at the time of writing on 25 June, only 10 of the 18 parliamentary parties have responded positively to what may be summarised as his “let’s all do constitutionalism and the rule of law together” invitation.

The rest have declined for various reasons, preferring to occupy the opposition benches, with some calling themselves the “progressive caucus” – another misnomer. 

The rump of what calls itself the progressive caucus is in the third- and fourth-largest parties – the MK party with 14.5% of the vote and the EFF with 9.5%. Their support, almost exclusively from black voters, compares unfavourably to that of the ANC with 40% and the DA with nearly 22%.

Gareth van Onselen has helpfully mapped the support of these four parties by race, revealing that only 58% of those who voted for the DA are in fact white. The remaining 42% of those who turned out to vote for the DA give the lie to the trope that the DA is the “white party”. The population of SA today is only 7.7% white, down from 25% at the time of Union in 1910.

The 10 parties which have responded positively to the GNU invitation extended by Ramaphosa represent about 70% of the voting population who turned up to cast their ballots on 29 May. A worrying statistic is that the ANC, still the biggest party, is supported by only 16% of those eligible to vote in SA. The IEC is going to have to work hard to popularise constitutional democracy and to educate voters to turn up on polling day.

The process has so far been able to produce a new president, Speaker and Deputy Speaker in the National Assembly, but the baby is still not far enough down the birth canal to determine its gender and prospects of growing healthily. 

It is clear that a GNU is not going to be possible, due largely to the antipathy of the MKP for what it calls “the Ramaphosa ANC” and the unwillingness of the EFF to participate in tandem with the DA, which it calls “the white capitalist party of apartheid”, with scant regard to the facts.

A further sticking point has arisen because all 10 parties who are, in principle, open to sharing in an MPCG, wrongly called a GNU, want the largest possible slice of the Cabinet pie that is available to them via the negotiation process that precedes the birth of the new order.

According to the Secretary General of the ANC, Fikile Mbalula, there are 28 Cabinet posts and 33 deputy ministers to be appointed. Assuming the 10 parties willing to participate are to share equitably in this pie, it is necessary to decide the value of each ministry and apportion according to the share each participating political party has garnered by way of the popular vote.

To do this fairly, the percentage each party has contributed in seats won by the MPCG has to be calculated and the Cabinet seats have also to be given a value. 

It is obvious that there are heavyweight, even super-heavyweight ministries, and middleweight ones, with a few lightweight ministries bringing up the rear in the popularity stakes. 

It will be the devil’s own work to reach agreement on the value of each ministerial post, but clearly, by way of example, the minister of sport is not as important as the minister of police, in the circumstances in which SA currently finds itself.

If, as should be the case if presidential promises made (but not kept) in the sixth Parliament are met, the Cabinet could be reduced to, say, 20 ministries with 10 deputy ministers – then the horde of wannabes will be reduced to only 30 successful new faces in the national Cabinet. 

The DA wants representation across all Cabinet clusters, which it has usefully grouped as five clusters which are set out in detail, with DA preferences listed too, in a letter that Helen Zille – for the DA – wrote to Mbalula on 23 June 2024.

As the ANC is about twice the size of the DA in the popularity stakes, it should have twice the duly weighted representation in the new Cabinet.

At present there seems to be a murky, if not opaque, form of horse trading taking place without any effort to reduce Cabinet numbers or indeed to “weight” different ministries on the scale of their importance in the bigger scheme of post-dominant party government in SA. 

This jostling for position reflects poorly on the political maturity of those involved in the negotiations and also brings into question their commitments to fairness, equity and the upholding of the rule of law in the context of constitutionalism.

Our form of constitutional democracy is required to “result, in general, in proportional representation” in terms of section 46 of the Constitution. All but a possible (but not prescribed) two of the members of the Cabinet must be from the ranks of those elected to the National Assembly.

Whether these two requirements, when applied to a hung Parliament, mean that broad proportional representation is required in Cabinet remains to be seen as it is a proposition not yet tested in the constitutional development of SA.

It is a fair proposition that may well apply due to the disappearance of the majority hitherto enjoyed by the ANC, a majority that enabled it to draw Cabinet largely from its own ranks in the National Assembly.

If a GNU or an MPCG is to be the way forward, then fairness in the horse-trading process of sorting out Cabinet positions and more ought to be the hallmark of the process. 

While the president has the discretion regarding who he appoints to Cabinet, his spokesperson has conceded that this discretion has to be exercised rationally. It would not be rational to give all the plumb Cabinet posts to the ANC and the dregs to the rest.

Intransigence and greed for positions may abort the whole process of trying to cooperate on the form of government that is now preferred because the ANC has lost its majority. A lot will depend on what the ANC really wants. It has been in the habit of governing by sleight of hand in the past.

The ANC has historically paid lip service to constitutional values while simultaneously seeking the hegemonic control of all the levers of power in society which the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) requires of the deployed cadres of the ANC. Anthea Jeffery has written a book on this topic called “Countdown to Socialism”. Accountability Now weighed in on the same theme five years ago when SA celebrated its 25th year of liberation from the yoke of apartheid.

In the new Parliament, there will be no room and no opportunity for hegemony; if the strivings for hegemony continue, they will surely scupper all efforts to give birth to a healthy government during the life of the seventh Parliament. 

It may be necessary to call an early election to restore equilibrium.

Mbalula and Justice Minister Ronald Lamola have, in defiance of Ramaphosa’s commitment to a GNU based on constitutionalism and the rule of law, reaffirmed the commitment of the ANC to its NDR strivings. These inconsistencies in the ANC’s position need to be called out in the negotiations.

A direct confrontation can be avoided by the simple expedient of testing the ANC’s commitment to ending corruption. The whole “renewal project” of the ANC has been aimed at so doing, but has not hitherto developed any traction because the ANC does not have the necessary political will to enforce the binding rulings in the Glenister litigation either properly or at all.

A GNU or an MPCG affords the ANC the opportunity to atone for the “sins of incumbency” and repair its self-confessed image as “Accused Number One in State Capture” by reforming the criminal justice administration to better capacitate it to prevent, combat, investigate and prosecute serious corruption and organised crime.

The DA has promised voters that within 100 days of the commencement of the new seventh Parliament, it will sponsor legislation aimed at establishing an Anti-Corruption Commission under Chapter Nine of the Constitution, and the intention to do so has been formally gazetted. That is a promise worth keeping, the exigencies of realpolitik notwithstanding.

The ANC should be required, before any deal is finalised, to commit itself to supporting the legislation envisaged by the DA. The legislation will end the hegemonic control of the ANC over the levers of power relating to corruption busting. It will accordingly be the acid test of its commitment to the rule of law which requires that court decisions be regarded as binding and be implemented accordingly.

No deal of any kind should be entertained if the ANC is not supportive of the DA’s proposed Anti-Corruption Commission. 

A short-lived minority government or the inevitable collapse of any coalition government in which the NDR is still pursued by the ANC is preferable to the charade of finessing away the showdown that will come when the radical reform promise made by the DA leader is kept.

The DA owes it to those who supported it to hold feet to the fire on solving the corruption with impunity issues that have so dogged peace, progress and prosperity in SA.

The intransigence of the MKP and EFF have rendered a GNU, properly so called, stillborn; the fate of the MPCG is still in the balance. May wise heads and proficient midwifery prevail. DM