On Wednesday, 2 April, soon after the Budget’s fiscal framework report was adopted in a tight vote, Democratic Alliance (DA) spokesperson Willie Aucamp confirmed the party’s federal executive would meet to decide the party’s future in the Government of National Unity (GNU).
This comes as the National Assembly adopted the report despite objections from an unlikely trio: the DA, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the uMkhonto Wesizwe party.
Aucamp told Daily Maverick that the party’s federal executive would meet either on Wednesday night or Thursday morning and then decide on a way forward. The party, Aucamp said, will “serve the people of this country as we have done so for many years”.
It was a bruising day for the DA in the House as party after party swiped jabs at the country’s second-largest party.
Read more: Daily Maverick live blog
When DA leader and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen later announced on social media that it would be heading to the Western Cape Division of the High Court to challenge the passing of the vote, Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie bluntly responded that Steenhuisen should also submit his resignation.
Pls also file your resignation papers at same time. https://t.co/lBHbakmEeE
— Gayton McKenzie (@GaytonMcK) April 2, 2025
The official opposition, the MK party, is also headed to court.
The party’s Siyabonga Gama said the party would instruct counsel to “approach the courts so that we are able to deal with this matter … because you cannot get a decision that is legal out of a fraud process”.
The MK party raised several objections, counter-motions and, of course, questioned Tuesday’s meeting where the fiscal framework was adopted. This framework is a crucial step that allows the Budget to be passed.
Read more: Budget deadlock — is ActionSA the ANC’s saviour and what does it mean for the GNU?
‘Complete betrayal’
ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli told journalists inside the parliamentary precinct: “I don't know what is going to happen with them now [the DA] but the GNU remains.”
Right now, the ANC should figure out how to respond when there was a “complete betrayal” by one of the GNU parties, said Ntuli.
“They were voting against the Budget in its entirety, and they were proposing that the Budget must be redirected in order to have some of the items being removed or cut out,” he said.
The ANC, Ntuli said, wanted to “grow the economy … We want the state to invest in the infrastructure. We have to respond to the plight of our people, get our hospitals working, hire the unemployed doctors, replace the workers, the health workers who are no longer part of the health department, and address the education crisis.”
He added, “As the ANC, we’re very happy that the Budget has been passed.”
One person who was smiling on Wednesday was Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. He told Daily Maverick that this kind of engagement could be expected over the course of the next five years.
“I said one of the interesting things we should accept about this Budget has been its ability to generate discourse in society and then I said sadly, ‘We’re focusing on one side of the equation, on the revenue side, taxes – no one looked at the expenditure side and said, are we happy with what we’re spending the money on?’
“And everybody is happy with what we’re spending the money on, how they wish that we couldn’t kind of get money from some heaven. It doesn't work that way.”
ActionSA open to joining GNU
ActionSA’s parliamentary leader Athol Trollip had more precise words for the DA.
“The DA has been in the GNU for nine months and the reason we have this impasse here is because the GNU couldn’t get a Budget that they all agreed on, and the main protagonist there has been the Democratic Alliance.”
The party’s six votes helped to get the fiscal framework report across the line after the DA opposed it.
Trollip, a former DA member, said, “The fact of the matter is they put … their concessions or demands at too high a price and the ANC said sorry, we can’t do that.”
Trollip’s remarks are similar to what Daily Maverick associate editor Ferial Haffajee wrote earlier this week about the possibility that the DA might have overplayed its hand.
Read more: Big Budget Bust-Up — here’s why DA might be overplaying its hand
When asked if this now meant ActionSA would join the GNU, Trollip said, “Well, my president [Herman Mashaba] apparently said this morning in an interview that he would consider it if this matter was supported in Parliament because you know politics is fluid.”
IFP backs Budget
During Tuesday’s standing committee meeting on finance, where the fiscal framework was adopted, with an amendment by ActionSA, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) supported the report alongside ActionSA and the ANC.
This had the DA blame the IFP, ActionSA and ANC for allowing the 0.5 percentage point VAT hike to be passed. The DA and IFP are not only partners in the GNU, but they are part of a coalition government in KwaZulu-Natal alongside the ANC.
On being asked about the DA’s comments, IFP leader Velenkosini Hlabisa told Daily Maverick that the “IFP is a political party on its own … We do not take mandate from any other political party except ourselves.
“We supported the Budget, which we were part of. We are not supporting the ANC, we are not supporting anyone, but we are following our logic,” said Hlabisa, who is also a minister in the GNU.
“The IFP rejected the [2 percentage point] VAT proposal, and we became part of the discussion that the Treasury must look at other options or at least 0.5 [percentage point VAT hike]. It’s our logic,” he said.
Hlabisa said that though they were in the GNU, there were issues they did not agree on with either the DA or ANC.
“We owe no one when we take a view in terms of our logic and what we see is the best interest for what is best for the country at this point.”
Previously, Hlabisa told Daily Maverick the party supported the Budget, even with the VAT hike, as the IFP did not want SA to borrow more money to fund teaching or nursing jobs.
Read more: Several GNU and opposition parties throw a spanner in the works for Godongwana
While passing the fiscal framework (which outlines expected revenue, economic policy and sets limits on government spending) was a key step in getting the Budget through Parliament, the Division of Revenue Bill and Appropriation Bill are yet to be approved. DM