The unveiling of a DA billboard on Johannesburg’s N1 highway — proclaiming “BEE made ANC elites rich and left SA poor”— is more than campaign bluster. It’s a calculated political strike at the heart of South Africa’s fragile Government of National Unity (GNU).
This move is not just about domestic rivalry. It mirrors a global trend where coalition partners weaponise divisive identity and economic policies, threatening government stability.
At the core is a persistent tension within coalitions. What happens when a partner publicly attacks a foundational policy of the other?
Political gambit
The DA’s billboard is not just criticism. It’s a political gambit, turning the ANC’s signature redress policy — Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) — against it.
By blaming BEE for national poverty, the DA seeks not only to erode the ANC’s credibility, but also to fracture its base. It casts the liberation movement as a self-serving elite. This kind of public antagonism endangers the cooperation that the GNU desperately needs to function. It makes the nation’s stability hostage to partisan ambition.
A telling parallel is Israel’s recent experience. Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition depended on ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) parties, with a key trade-off being the exemption of Haredi men from military service — a deeply symbolic, identity-based policy. Mounting public backlash and a Supreme Court mandate to end this exemption turned it into a fault line.
Netanyahu’s secular partners demanded reform. Haredi parties threatened to walk if the policy was touched. This impasse ultimately led to paralysis and collapse. The lesson: coalitions fracture when partners use core identity issues as battlegrounds instead of seeking compromise.
Similarly, the DA’s attack on BEE is akin to an Israeli secular party publicly blaming Haredi draft exemptions for national failures.
Grave implications for GNU
For the ANC, BEE is as essential to its post-apartheid identity as the draft exemption is to the Haredi. By publicly challenging it, the DA is not just critiquing policy — it is undermining the ANC’s very raison d’être.
For South Africa’s GNU, the implications are grave. The DA’s move signals it may prioritise electoral gains over the difficult work of coalition governance.
If the ANC retaliates by undermining key DA priorities, such as fiscal reforms, the GNU risks devolving into a destructive cycle of mutual sabotage. This would transform the coalition from a potential engine for renewal into a theatre of political war, likely ending in failure.
Europe offers further cautionary tales. Right-wing populist parties like France’s National Rally (RN) and Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) have gained ground by reframing economic debates along identity lines — a strategy labelled “welfare chauvinism”.
They argue that generous state benefits should be reserved for the “native-born”, blaming immigrants for draining resources.
This approach weaponises economic frustration, deepens societal divisions, and simplifies complex histories into zero-sum narratives.
Entrenching divisions
The DA’s slogan — “Choose real opportunities for all” — may sound inclusive. But by framing BEE as enriching a few and impoverishing the many, it taps into similar resentments. It holds out the promise of a race-blind, meritocratic alternative, aimed at voters who feel excluded by both BEE and the mainstream economy. Such rhetoric plays well electorally. But it corrosive in a coalition context. It risks entrenching the very divisions the GNU was created to overcome.
This is, at its core, a masterclass in opposition politics — but a disaster for coalition governance. International experience from Israel and Europe shows that when coalition partners go public in attacking the most sensitive, identity-driven policies of their allies, the result is deadlock or collapse.
The way forward is not through escalating public recriminations. But through private, principled negotiation. The DA is right that BEE’s implementation has been tainted by corruption and inefficiency. This is a reality acknowledged by many within the ANC.
Forge consensus around issue
But the answer is not to ridicule a coalition partner in the public square. Instead, both parties must use the machinery of government to forge consensus around a more effective, less corrupt, and genuinely inclusive model of economic empowerment.
The ANC, for its part, must move beyond defensiveness and engage seriously with critiques of its policy. It must recognise the urgent need for reform. The stakes are high: the partners can either emulate the dysfunction and division seen in other coalitions globally, or they can embrace the harder path of compromise — building a shared, sustainable vision for South Africa’s future.
The DA’s billboard is more than a campaign message; it’s a warning sign. Without restraint and real negotiation, South Africa’s GNU risks driving straight down the road to ruin.
