GNU's job is to take SA forward, not solve ANC's internal problems

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for a “government of national unity” is based on a false premise. It assumes that the ANC’s fall to 40% of the vote in the 29 May election represents a crisis for the country that must be solved by an act of national unity.

Ramaphosa put it this way: “In establishing a government of national unity, we will be drawing on an experience with which South Africans are familiar and which served our country well at a time of great difficulty.”

Yes, there are a lot of politicians who will be out of work, but they will be replaced by others from other parties. There will be a lot of bleeding in certain sectors of business and high finance which have lazily cultivated the ANC elite for decades in exchange for favours. Bless them. But is this really a time of “great difficulty”?

Instead of casting the ANC’s vanishing electoral support as a crisis, we ought to be celebrating the maturation of democracy and the fact that voters with diverse agendas have taken control and punished failure. The ANC ought to be celebrating the growth of the middle class it played no small part in creating even if this means that the old Struggle shibboleths are being set aside by more immediate concerns such as the cost of living and the decline in basic service delivery.

Far from entering a state of crisis, the country is experiencing a sense of relief at the prospect of a change from the stumbling governance of the last 30 years, whatever form that might ultimately take.

Governments of national unity are formed at times of war, national crisis or political transition, as was the case in South Africa in 1994. While the ANC may be experiencing a crisis, it is more than a little narcissistic of it to believe this means the country is in crisis. This attempt to cement a mythology tying together party, state and nation is a well-worn path trod by liberation movements losing their grip on power.

As an editorial in The Economist put it: “Meetings of the African National Congress (ANC) are a mix of materialism and narcissism. The fancy SUVs parked outside any gathering hint at the spoils of office enjoyed by South Africa’s ruling party. Inside there will be a self-indulgent atmosphere: regalia and songs that hark back to the anti-apartheid struggle; discussion about the meaning of transformation, liberation, revolution and renewal. There are few things that the ANC enjoys more than talking about the ANC. There is enough navel-gazing to require an army of chiropractors.”

A striking analogue is India, where Narendra Modi’s BJP just lost its majority in India’s election. He is not calling for a “government of national unity”, but rather cobbling together a coalition to get him over 50%. This is familiar territory for India and has often occurred since the Congress party first lost its majority in 1977.

As the political commentator Pratap Bhanu Mehta put it: “At the very least, the result pricks the bubble of Prime Minister Modi’s authority. He made this election about himself. Today, he is just another politician, cut to size by the people.” 

Victim of hubris