In South Africa there is no war but the country is so fractured it could not elect a majority government in the May 29 polls, and so had to resort to forming a government of national unity (GNU).
Strictly speaking, a GNU comes into existence during crisis moments of war or other emergencies.
Ideologically, South Africa is politically polarised. There are deep-seated political challenges that were not resolved at the onset of our democracy in 1994.
The ANC, with the 40% it garnered at the polls, knew it could not risk to resort to running the country as a minority government. It also knew it would have to be careful whom it invited to form a government with.
Minority governments are often rocked by instability due to ideological differences.
The electorate was unwilling to give the ANC an outright majority. It gave it a disappointing 40% of the national vote.
Professor Tinyiko Maluleke, vice-chancellor of the Tshwane University of Technology and political analyst, saw the development as a tell-tale sign that “the people could be turning their back on the ANC”, for failing to live up to the promises of ‘a better life’”.
But the irony of it all is that former president Jacob Zuma, the chief architect of state capture, as described by the Zondo commission, had his new party, the MK Party, performing well, overtaking the EFF as the third largest political party in the country.
Maluleke said for the ANC to reclaim credibility, it has to use its majority cabinet presence as a pulpit to prop up the come-back strategy to regain political power.
For 30 long years, South Africans were sold a dummy – exacerbated by Zuma’s disastrous nine years of looting and malfeasance, which crippled the state’s ability to deliver services to the poor.
Maluleke argued that the big story of the day was about the ANC losing on average 10% of the electorate’s confidence.
“The ANC has been seen as the carrier of the people’s dreams for a better life. But the electorate is fed up for its failure to implement its policies of bringing about a better life for the people.
“The ANC must start campaigning now, but it will have to recognise that as they do so, they must appreciate the negative impact the VBS scandal involving the minister of justice creates in the minds of the electorate.
“The ANC must quickly address this…” Maluleke said.
He said “the biggest political spin” was that the electorate wanted a government of national unity”.
“The fact of the matter is that the electorate voting patterns expressed discontentment with the ANC.”
And so, the GNU could also be viewed as a phenomenon likely to be exploited by the GNU participants, particularly the DA, which is the largest partner in the GNU pact after the ANC.
The DA teems with financial resources, which it will use to its advantage, to showcase how well their ministers in the GNU are changing the political landscape for the better.
The ANC will have to do the same: act ruthlessly to clean up every malfeasance calculated at smudging its reputation, and to project itself as a party ready to reclaim its “glorious movement status”.
The ANC will also have to beat up the liberation and freedom drum, reminding communities of the role it played to remove the scourge of apartheid.
But above all, the ANC ministers in the cabinet and its leadership on all tiers of government, particularly in the big metros such as the Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane, will have to be seen as working harder than before to improve the quality of peoples’ lives in areas where they govern.
In the end, the unity governments are hard to manage. In the Tshwane metro, the ANC is all bent to mount a vote of no-confidence on the current DA mayor, Cilliers Brink.
How this threat to remove Brink will impact on the national government, and the agreements struck between the ANC and DA, is hard to predict.
If the relationship were to break, the ANC would have to find new partners to sustain the GNU.
- Mdhlela is a freelance journalist, an Anglican priest, ex-trade unionist, and former editor of the South African Human Rights Commission journals
