Principled protest or performative politics? The DA's budget vote and the real risks to higher education

Daily Maverick

a day ago

On 3 July 2025, Parliament debated and voted on the budget allocation for the Department of Higher Education and Training. At face value, it was a routine step in the national fiscal calendar.
In reality, it became a stage for a high-stakes political performance — one in which the Democratic Alliance (DA), a key player in the newly formed Government of National Unity (GNU), chose to oppose the Higher Education budget vote, citing Minister Nobuhle Nkabane's alleged misconduct in Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) appointments and misrepresentation to Parliament.
The DA's decision may appear principled. After all, allegations of dishonesty in the appointment of public officials are serious and should be investigated with the gravity they deserve. But when weighed against its broader actions — supporting the Appropriation Bill, backing the Divisions of Revenue Bill, and remaining firmly embedded in the GNU — its opposition begins to look more like a carefully choreographed act than a genuine stand for accountability.
A convenient dissonance
This dissonance is at the heart of the matter. The DA claims it cannot, in good conscience, support a budget administered by a minister it deems untrustworthy. Yet it supports the very bills that enable that same budget to exist.
It lays criminal charges, stages high-profile appearances at police stations, and calls for dismissals — all while continuing to co-govern with the very figures it accuses. It denounces cadre deployment but offers little clarity on how it would democratise governance without retreating into technocracy.
In a rare and probably never to be seen moment of striking clarity, EFF MP Sihle Lonzi captured the contradiction during the parliamentary debate succinctly: the DA was not voting against the budget for moral reasons — it was engaging in political theatre. It wanted to protest against the firing of its own deputy minister more than it wanted to reform the education system.
This is not to diminish the need for transparency or integrity in higher education governance. If our minister misled Parliament or failed to act within ethical and procedural norms, she must account.
The principle of accountability must apply equally and without political convenience. But it is precisely because of the gravity of these principles that they should not be deployed as tactical weapons in what has become a rapidly unravelling unity experiment.
The real stakes: students, workers and institutions
What gets lost in this posturing are the very real consequences for students, workers, and institutions.
The 2025/26 budget vote allocated:
R96-billion to universities.
R14-billion to Technical and Vocational Education and Training colleges.
7-billion to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme — supporting millions of poor and working-class students.
It included resources to refurbish Giyani College, build new campuses in mining towns, and expand Centres of Specialisation in TVETs. It committed funds for student housing, campus safety, and infrastructure upgrades in a sector strained by overcrowding, underfunding, and social unrest.
Opposing this budget, not for its content but to symbolically target the minister, is not just disingenuous — it is dangerous. It delays service delivery, unsettles institutions already grappling with instability, and undermines the very transformation the DA claims to support. And it does so without offering a credible alternative.
Is the DA suggesting that the budget be collapsed and re-tabled under another minister? That students be denied allowances until the political clean-up is complete? That Technical and Vocational Education and Training expansions wait until internal GNU tensions are resolved?
This is the risk of performative opposition: it prioritises narrative over necessity.
Judicial luxuries and democratic realities
There's also a class dimension to this moment. Helen Zille's symbolic march to the police station, dragging her party MP to lay charges, was intended to show resolve. But it also unintentionally revealed a deep inequality in access to justice.
How many of the students who rely on this budget have the same legal recourse? How many workers on underfunded campuses can march their grievances into the same institutions with the same certainty of being heard?
The DA's self-image as a party of clean governance must confront this paradox: the performance of moral superiority can, at times, obscure the impact of its own decisions. Opposing a budget that funds student meals, campus safety, housing, and worker wages cannot be the righteous act it is presented to be.
From symbolism to substance
If the DA wishes to be taken seriously as a party of national leadership, it must learn to distinguish between principled dissent and symbolic sabotage. South Africa needs opposition that strengthens governance, not that undermines service delivery for spectacle.
It must not fall into the trap of simple-minded populism: governing with one hand while campaigning with the other.
At the same time, the GNU cannot become a fragile house of mirrors — one where parties selectively engage depending on which faction is being challenged. Unity must not mean uniformity, but nor can it survive hypocrisy.
If this coalition is to endure and serve the nation meaningfully, its members must honour both accountability and responsibility. There is space for critique, investigation, and reform — but there is no space for empty performance when the stakes are this high.
There is no theatre more dangerous than that which mistakes its script for reality. South Africa's higher education system is not a stage — it is a lifeline. It deserves more than posturing. It deserves principled, pragmatic governance.
That is what students, workers, and our national development agenda demand. Anything less is a betrayal. DM