Coalition governance: Will the GNU forge a new centrist political landscape?
Given that coalitions at the national level will from now onwards be the dominant form of governance, South Africa's Government of National Unity (GNU), whether it is successful or not, may very likely be the catalyst over time to unleash a much-needed realignment of the country's current not-fit-for-purpose political party system, with its origins in our apartheid-era divisions, into future national coalitions that could group political party coalitions into pro-constitutional versus populist ones.
There is the potential that the ANC and DA partnership in the GNU may over time provide the impetus for President Cyril Ramaphosa's social democratic, constitutionalist, and non-racial wing of the ANC to partner with the DA in a long-term governing pact, like for example the post-World War 2 coalition between Germany's Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU), or they may even merge.
Such a new political party arrangement could, over time, lead to the formation of a new pragmatic centrist political consensus for South Africa, which spans ideology, race and class in the country's politics, economics and society.
South Africa needs such a new pragmatic, Constitution-based, evidence-based policy that is racially inclusive, with centrist governing consensus that goes beyond past entrenched apartheid-era political party divisions.
South Africa's current identity-based, past-based, outdated ideology-based, narrow village-view outlook of political party politics, and slogans for policies, is not fit for purpose for the requirements of Constitutional democracy, or to ensure effective public service delivery or for non-racial unity.
South Africa will not be able to tackle its complex problems based on the current flawed political party set-up. The reality is that South Africa is facing deep existential crises, which one ethnic group, party, or colour alone cannot solve.
There is currently a fierce battle within the ANC between the party's constitutionalist, Social Democratic and non-racial wing that favours the ANC's GNU alliance with the DA and members of the former Multiparty Charter (MPC); and the left populist wing of the party, centred around the ANC's Gauteng provincial party, who want the ANC to align with the populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and former president Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party.
The endgame of this internal ANC battle may be another split in the ANC, possibly this time between the party's constitutionalist, Social Democratic and non-racial wing on the one hand; and on the other hand, the remainder of its left populist wing that has not defected to either the EFF or MK party. Ironically, Zuma, immediately after the GNU announcement, angrily said that the ANC partnering with the former Multiparty Charter or 'Moonshot Pact' parties, the Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party and the Freedom Front Plus, meant the ANC had now joined the Multiparty Charter. There is some truth in his statement.
South African Communist Party Chairperson Blade Nzimande at the party's fifth Special National Congress in December 2024 said: '(The) Moonshot Pact whose aim was bringing the ANC under 50%… They attained their goal of bringing the ANC under 50%.'
Moonshot and doomsday
The Multiparty Charter was aimed at kick-starting the realignment of South Africa's politics. The original agreement was that the 15-party member Multiparty Charter would, if the ANC fell below 50% in the 29 May 2024 elections, form a government, if needed, with pro-constitutional, business-friendly, civil society-friendly and media freedom supportive and racial diversity supporting parties, not part of the Multiparty Charter, but part of a Multiparty Charter Plus, who would be willing to govern with the group.
The idea was that if the charter was unable to put together a national government, they would go into opposition as a collective and fight the 2026 local and the 2029 elections together. By working together in a pre-electoral coalition, the Multiparty Charter's aim was, whether in power or in opposition, to lay the foundations for the possibility for some members of the charter to be in a permanent coalition, or some members even merging in the future.
The outcome of the 29 May 2024 general elections were dramatically different from what Multiparty Charter members or even the ANC or EFF had projected. The ANC dropped below the psychological barrier of 40% to 39.7% after the IEC's final audit of the results. Many of the Multiparty Charter members obtained fewer votes than they thought they would get.
Although the collective opposition secured 61% of the vote, the Multiparty Charter group — even with the additional Multiparty Charter Plus members, parties such as Bosa and Rise Mzansi, who were not part of the charter, but who were open to joining it in the government — could not put together a government, because they would have needed the support of anti-constitutional parties the MK party and EFF, which want anti-democratic changes to the Constitution.
A key pillar of the Multiparty Charter agreement was not to work with the ANC or with unconstitutional, violent parties or those that opposed non-racialism. The combination of bringing the ANC to below the 40% floor, and the inability to put together an alternative government of opposition parties, left the Multiparty Charter with one of two alternatives.
The Multiparty Charter could stick with its founding agreement not to partner with the ANC and go into opposition, using the time also to forge closer unity. The charter, in opposition, could then benefit from the country's doomsday crash and in the 2029 election come to power.
However, this would leave the ANC to partner with the EFF and MK in a 'doomsday' populist coalition that could lead to capital flight, skills flight, the rand to crash, and more state failure, lawlessness and corruption. In such a scenario, the Multiparty Charter would take over an Argentinian-collapse-like country.
The other option was to ditch the Multiparty Charter principle of not partnering with the ANC, in order to try to prevent a South African crash, by partnering with the ANC to create a centrist leaning growth coalition.
Key members of the Multiparty Charter, such as the DA, the IFP and Freedom Front Plus, decided to co-govern with the ANC, to prevent a 'doomsday' crash government.
ActionSA and the African Christian Democratic Party declined to work with the ANC, deciding to stay true to the original Multiparty Charter agreement, that if the charter could not put together a government, it must as a group oppose the ANC in opposition, and then fight the 2026 local government elections and the 2029 national elections together.
Unintended realignment
The GNU is likely to change the ANC — and may lead to another breakaway in the ANC, between the pro-GNU and anti-GNU groups. There is a coming fallout within the ANC tripartite alliance of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and SACP, between the factions that want to continue the ANC having a partnership with the former Multiparty Charter members; and the factions wanting the ANC to align with the EFF and MK, formed by breakaway ANC members.
The SACP claimed the ANC's partnership with the DA, IFP and FF Plus was the party embracing 'white monopoly capital'. The SACP will now contest the upcoming local elections as a separate party to the ANC. Cosatu said it remained 'concerned' about the DA/IFP/FF Plus inclusion in the GNU, and that it wanted the ANC to pursue a 'different option', meaning a GNU partnership with the EFF/MK.
The endgame of this internal ANC battle may be another split in the ANC, this time between the party's constitutionalist, Social Democratic and non-racial wing and the remainder of its left populist wing, that has not defected to either the EFF or MK party.
South Africa desperately needs a consolidation of parties. Many of the current parties should ideally close down, fold into bigger parties, or smaller parties should merge. If a consolidation of parties is not the route taken, then South African parties should form coalitions whereby they operate almost as one party, but retain their individual identity.
Most of South Africa's parties share the same policies, ideologies, slogans and even colours, which can rarely be distinguished from one another, beyond having different leaders. Despite the many parties, South African voters have little choice, as parties are all the same.
This is one of the reasons why so many parties get so few votes in elections, and why many South Africans refrain from voting.
Sadly, gangsters, populists, ideologues, the prejudiced, the narrow-minded, the violent, the ignorant, and the corrupt are increasingly dominating South Africa's mainstream politics, economic, public and cultural discourse.
The failure of the ANC-run state, the decline of the economy and the rising fracture of society, because the ANC, before the GNU, had become increasingly racially exclusionary, gave the space to populists, the corrupt, the violent and ideologues to mobilise support based on narrow identity laager politics, and to secure parliamentary and municipal positions.
It is critical that the angry, violent, ignorant, narrow-minded and populist 'leaders' and groups on both the far left and far right be prevented from dominating South Africa's mainstream politics.
South Africa needs a new pragmatic centre based on the embrace of the Constitution, common sense, reality, pragmatism and racial inclusivity. Such a new pragmatic centre must be based on honesty, decency, rationality and compassion that goes across race, identity or political affiliation and on governing in the widest public interests of all South Africans.
The unintended impact of the GNU could just be such a realignment of the country's political parties, which could transform components of the current GNU political parties into a long-term centrist national coalition. DM
Professor William Gumede is based at the School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, and is the author of the bestselling Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times; and former Independent Chairperson of the negotiations to establish the Multiparty Charter (Moonshot Pact), the 15-party pre-electoral opposition coalition group before the 29 May 2024 general elections, and advised parties in their negotiations to form the Government of National Unity.
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