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The GNU comes to Parliament — with political trade-offs aplenty

The GNU comes to Parliament — with political trade-offs aplenty
Rebecca Davis
By Rebecca Davis
11 Jul 2024
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With Parliament’s committee chairs elected this week, the seventh Parliament is already unprecedented in the number of parties given this responsibility. But the ANC is also fielding some familiar old rogues — with the tacit endorsement of its GNU partners.

Dina Pule. Zweli Mkhize. Khusela Sangoni. Mzwandile Masina. Supra Mahumapelo.

These are some of the characters elected by the Government of National Unity (GNU) parties into leadership positions in the legislature this week.



Pule is the former communications minister axed from Jacob Zuma’s Cabinet in 2013 after a parliamentary inquiry laid bare the corruption allegations against her in a way that even Zuma could not ignore.

Pule has just been elected as chair of the agriculture portfolio committee — meaning that GNU Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen will have to account to her in Parliament.

Steenhuisen may be gritting his teeth while doing so, but unlike in the past, he cannot simply blame the ANC for putting Pule in her position. In this seventh Parliament, due to the number of MPs haemorrhaged by the ANC during the elections, the ANC cannot make a move without the assistance of its GNU partners — all of whom are responsible for the committee chairs elected this week.

Mkhize resigned as health minister in August 2021 following the exposé by Daily Maverick of his alleged involvement in a corruption scandal in his department during the peak of Covid-19, when the country was looking to him for stewardship of the worst public health crisis in years. This week, he was elected as the chair of Parliament’s cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) committee.

Sangoni (formerly Diko) was fired as President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson in August 2021 following reports that she and her late husband were embroiled in a PPE-related corruption scandal. This week, she was elected as the chair of Parliament’s communications portfolio committee.

Former Ekurhuleni mayor Masina has lurched from one controversy to the next, of which possibly the most concerning was the amaBhungane report in 2019 that the Ekurhuleni metro, under Masina’s watch, had spent R1.9-billion on chemical toilets in an apparent get-rich-quick scheme. This week, Masina was elected as the chair of the trade, industry and competition committee.

Mahumapelo was the premier of North West under whose watch the entire provincial government had to be placed under administration — an unprecedented move — in 2018. This week, he was elected as the chair of Parliament’s international relations committee.

These are not the choices many would hope to see from the institution responsible for holding the executive accountable and keeping a steely eye on good governance. 

Daily Maverick also understands that there is significant unhappiness in pockets of the GNU party caucuses beyond the ANC about the kinds of political compromises currently being made in service of the GNU — and fear that future electorates may not be forgiving.

Silver linings in some parliamentary choices


The horse-trading engaged in by the GNU parties has meant that the DA has ended up at the helm of five parliamentary committees. Though wildly disproportionate to the ANC’s spoils — at the time of writing, with one committee yet to elect, the ANC held chairs in 25 committees — it is not a bad outcome considering that the GNU Statement of Intent did not mandate exactly how the legislature positions should be shared.

The relevant clause in the Statement of Intent simply reads: “When committees of Parliament are constituted, the spirit of a Parliament of National Unity shall be implemented to enable parties that are part of the GNU to be accorded leadership positions of some committees.” 

Arguably the greatest prize for the DA has been securing the chair of the police committee, to which the party will deploy pugnacious safety and security activist Ian Cameron. (Cameron is likely to have his work cut out for him, however, given that the committee includes the likes of the EFF’s Mbuyiseni Ndlozi — a merciless debater who has been handed a gift in the form of the recent blackface scandal in which Cameron found himself.)  

There were also rewards for Build One South Africa (chair of the standing committee on appropriations, Scoa), Rise Mzansi (chair of the standing committee on public accounts, Scopa) and the Freedom Front Plus (chair of the standing committee on the auditor-general).

Scoa and Scopa are extremely significant committees, and there is widespread agreement that Mmusi Maimane and Songezo Zibi, respectively, are excellent fits for the roles as individuals who can be trusted to give the use of government money a thorough probing — while also being perceived as sufficiently politically neutral to command the respect of their committees.

Ongoing confusion about opposition vs ruling parties


The election of Zibi as Scopa chair has, however, elicited strong — and not illegitimate — criticism from ActionSA on the grounds that this role has always traditionally been given to an opposition MP, as is international best practice.

Zibi’s Rise Mzansi has signed the GNU Statement of Intent and considers itself a member of the GNU, as Daily Maverick confirmed last week. In so doing, the party relinquished its status as the opposition.

“This [Scopa] position being gifted to a member of the multiparty government/GNU which already commands a 70% majority in Parliament serves to potentially neuter effective oversight over government expenditure and outcomes-related performance,” warned ActionSA caucus leader Athol Trollip.

It should be noted that ActionSA had strongly lobbied for Trollip himself to take the Scopa post, so there are undoubtedly some political sour grapes at play. 

But the issue also reflects something which is likely to take quite some time to settle: a widespread uncertainty about the nature of “opposition” and “ruling parties” within the Parliament of National Unity.

It was evident this week during a discussion held in Parliament’s rules committee about where MPs would sit during this Parliament’s National Assembly sittings — which might seem trivial, but goes to the heart of the matter.

The EFF’s Ndlozi argued that there must be a “clear delineation” between “opposition benches and ruling benches”. (For clarity, the opposition during the seventh Parliament will be made up of the EFF, the MK party, the African Transformation Movement and the United Africans Transformation parties, which collectively hold 100 of the 400 seats in the National Assembly.)

Other MPs felt that was no longer practical, in terms of the physical spaces available.

FF+ MP Wouter Wessels said: “We aren’t in the space any more to say government is here, opposition is here.” 

At the moment, those lines still seem very blurry. It will be the job of the seventh Parliament to clarify them — and soon. DM

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