Evaluating the achievements and problems since the establishment of the GNU (Part Two)

John Steenhuisen at the Democratic Alliance (DA) Rescue SA Election Closing Rally at Willowmoore Park on May 26, 2024 in Benoni, South Africa. The South African general elections will be held on 29 May 2024 to elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each of the nine provinces. (Photo: Gallo Images / Laird Forbes)

By Raymond Suttner

4 Sep 2024

There are some signs that are very positive in the actions of some of the leadership of the government of national unity. There are signs of stability and the economic picture has improved to some extent, although it is still very weak and South Africa remains the most unequal country in the world.

Part Two in a two-part series. Read Part One here.

The reason it was possible to create the government of national unity (GNU) and why it has an element of stability is that the two major minority parties, the ANC (receiving 40% of the vote) and the DA (just under 21%), decided to work together in a GNU.

Since the establishment of the GNU there has been some stability and positive signs of action from certain ministers of the DA and the ANC. In the case of the ANC, Senzo Mchunu, who is minister of police, has moved very quickly into trouble spots, and it was reported on 29 August that he has set in motion a plan for cooperation of the national department with the provincial and local governments in the Western Cape to deal with the dire crime situation, the worst in the country.

There is also the home affairs minister, Dr Leon Schreiber, of the DA, who moved carefully and quickly on issues of immigration, reducing backlogs and also making some progress in addressing the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit waiver applications (see here and here).

GNU Police Minister Senzo Mchunu during a National Assembly sitting on the South African Police Service’s plans to deal with high levels of extortion in the country, on 3 September 2024. (Photo: Phando Jikelo. /Parliament of SA)

GNU Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber during the swearing-in ceremony for the new national executive at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on 3 July 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)

I have the impression that there are other ministers who are taking their jobs seriously and acting with care and speedily, but will return to that when I have done the required research.

On the other hand, you have Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi, of the ANC, addressing the national health insurance plan, but in a way that does not seem to brook consideration of the objections that have been raised to try to reach a solution which addresses the fears that some people have, while still implementing the plan.

Composition of the GNU

I am not sure why it was necessary for the GNU to comprise 10 parties, drawing in people with very small percentages of the vote without proven capabilities. Perhaps the more backing the better, but many represent minuscule constituencies and do not add weight to the GNU in the event of its facing challenges.

I’m also not sure that the evaluation we have of the GNU will be enhanced by the presence of some people in the ANC component, with question marks around their integrity and abilities, as previously mentioned.

The appointment of Gayton McKenzie as minister of sports, arts and culture adds nothing and detracts from the gravity that ought to attach to government leadership. His repeated xenophobic statements, some in breach of the law and leading to charges of “hate speech being laid”, undermine any moral quality the GNU would like to claim.

On the job

It has also aroused considerable comment that John Steenhuisen, leader of the DA and the minister of agriculture, has appointed as his chief of staff a man who advances “alt-right” and racist views in many tweets (some have been deleted but remain as evidence. It has reportedly aroused concern within the DA, yet Steenhuisen has thus far made no comment and this man, Roman Cabanac, remains in this most senior position in Steenhuisen’s office.

GNU Steenhuisen John Steenhuisen, the new agriculture minister, speaks during a DA election closing rally at Willowmoore Park in Benoni on 26 May 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / Laird Forbes)

But the process of appointing acquaintances who are not suitable or qualified for the work appears to be more widespread, also involving the ANC, in North West among other places.

Overview

From what has been said, which is limited in scope, there are some signs that are very positive in the actions of some of the leadership of the GNU.

There are signs of stability and the economic picture has improved to some extent, although it is still very weak and South Africa remains the most unequal country in the world.

Let us hope that these positive steps will be built on and also that the GNU will become a more democratic institution in closer touch with those experiencing hardship on the ground.

There is a need to hear people, and the way to hear them needs to be through a range of participatory mechanisms that must be developed. I am not confident that the current GNU will be amenable to that.

The plan for a national dialogue, one such opportunity, does not give the impression of a truly national endeavour, nor a proper dialogue. There are few signs of preparation or the type of engagement that would be needed to reach the public in anything that purports to be “national”.

From what has been seen up till now, the GNU does not appear to signify the rebirth of a democratic South Africa, offering new hopes. Nevertheless, there have been some positive actions, some that have pointed to greater stability and repairing some of the problems that we currently have in South Africa.

Below the radar

In some ways the GNU is an attempt at a rebirth of South African democracy, but not quite what some would want – ideally. But there needs to be some rethinking on where the possibilities may be to have the stability that the GNU brings – augmented, beyond the backing of business.

Before the rise of the GNU, some of us were hoping for or working towards a transformed system of government whereby the people on the ground would have some way of raising their voices beyond voting every five years for representatives who did not really represent what they wanted. Using the phrase “working towards” exaggerates the endeavour, in that while some were organised in various ways, I have myself been outside of organisation for some time and advanced ideas via the media.

In this context, I used to argue for popular power – being influenced by the period of the 1980s – but I have now come to see popular power as something that interacts with representative government. It is logical because representative government, whatever its performance, has been established for 30 years.

Representative and popular governments are not opposites. They’re not necessarily antagonistic to one another, and representative government can itself be – in principle – a way of realising the popular.

With the birth of the GNU, a higher degree of stability has ensued, with business and the markets being happy about the formation of a coalition government called the government of national unity, primarily between the ANC and the DA but in fact comprising 10 parties, most of which represent very small numbers of people.

Even though stability has been achieved, I still believe that there is a necessity for the involvement of people in the present and their own future, beyond periodic voting.

But it seems at this point that there is little likelihood of the rise of popular power that can engage significantly with the government of the day, putting pressure for certain rights to be realised.

Public-spirited individuals and NGOs

What we have seen in recent years, which I think is a very important phenomenon, is that in the gaps where the government ought to be doing X or Y, sections of civil society like Gift of the Givers, some businesses and some responsible members of communities have stepped in to remedy water shortages, electricity problems, potholes and a range of other issues.

For example, I was driving in an affluent part of Johannesburg and there was a notice that the potholes in the area had been attended to by a certain big company – insurance or some other venture of theirs. In other places, businesses and others have got involved in traffic control where traffic lights are out because of load shedding.

Perhaps we need to accept that the private sector, NGOs, faith-based organisations, community and professional organisations are the vehicles that can be relied on, in many ways more than the state.

We may say that this should be done by the government, and we should demand it of the government and not leave it at that, and continue to demand of the government even if we find that sometimes the government does heed the demand, sometimes it doesn’t.

The most important thing now is not the principle of who should be doing it, who should be providing lifesaving resources, but that those resources should be provided to communities and peoples by whoever will do it, even if in many cases the party responsible for doing it, that is the GNU or the local government, is not doing it.

It is important that this type of voluntary assistance should try not to be skewed to wealthier areas. I know that many interventions have been made where poorer communities are, and let’s try not to have the majority fall through the cracks, but that needs the government to do its job.

There’s a real problem at the local government level, not just in terms of what they do but also, as Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke showed in the reports last week, that there is a problem with a failure to have clean audits for decades, and there are unresolved questions of corruption by council members, over contracts, over failure to deliver and diverting funds in a range of different ways that need attention (see here and here).

And it can’t wait for the government, and also cannot wait for the rise of organised popular power. I am arguing for a pragmatic approach. I’m not deviating from the principles of the Constitution in saying that these resources are the rights of the people of the country, and they should be provided to them, but since they are not being provided, we must act within the capacities that can be drawn on.

Certainly, some of those who act ought not to be the people who do so. It ought to be done by the government of the day, whether that is at a national or provincial or local level. But if the gap is being filled by Gift of the Givers, by councillors getting together with the community to do what ought to be supplied by the council itself, or by the government at another level, we need to applaud that.

We need to be aware that this is filling a gap. It’s insufficient. There are people who are starving in parts of this country. There are people who are drinking unclean water. There are people getting sick from drinking unclean water or having sewage running down the street, or catching infections, through other neglect.

Public-spirited people and organisations are playing a valuable role, but we still need the government to do its job. DM

This article first appeared on Creamer Media’s polity.org.za

Raymond Suttner is an Emeritus Professor at the University of South Africa and a Research Associate in the English Department at University of the Witwatersrand. He served lengthy periods as a political prisoner. His writings cover contemporary politics, history, and social questions. His twitter handle is @raymondsuttner.

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Part Two in a two-part series. Read Part One here.