Hlophe said the government President Cyril Ramaphosa formed after leading the ANC to the loss of its majority in the May elections was “nothing more than a desperate attempt to hold onto power”. File photo
There can be no unity between the privileged and the poor in South Africa, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) parliamentary leader John Hlophe said on Friday as he hammered on racial division in his reply to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s opening of parliament address on Thursday night.
Hlophe cast Ramaphosa’s coalition government as an unholy alliance with those who oppressed the country’s black majority.
“The establishment of the government of national unity [GNU] is singularly a very cruel joke by the Ramaphosa faction of the ANC and the Democratic Alliance perpetuated against the oppressed and downtrodden masses of our people,” he said.
“Our people are painfully aware that it will be impossible to create a united nation in South Africa unless the legacy of colonialism and apartheid was addressed.”
The country has long been two nations, he continued, one black, poor and economically disempowered and the other white, rich and in command of most of the means of production.
He said in pointing this out, he was merely quoting what former president Thabo Mbeki said many years ago.
“Nothing has changed fundamentally since Thabo Mbeki made those remarks,” Hlophe said.
“My question to you, Mr President, is this: Through what magic do you hope to force a national unity of the oppressor and the oppressed, the exploiter and the exploited, the rich capitalist and the toiling working class?”
Hlophe said the government Ramaphosa formed after leading the ANC to the loss of its majority in the May elections was “nothing more than a desperate attempt to hold onto power”.
But the result was that the party is now beholden to the Democratic Alliance (DA) which, for its part, agreed to enter into the coalition simply for the trappings of power, he added.
“We are not fools. It is very clear that the DA has a veto power in respect of the so-called government of national unity,” Hlophe said, before complaining that the MK party was denied a role in the government because it opposed its core policies.
“The MK party was excluded and denied participation in the sell-out GNU because we do not agree with the ANC and the DA racists on many fronts.”
The former judge president of the Western Cape, who was impeached in February, reiterated that the MK party’s priority was land reform carried out through expropriation without compensation and said the legal impediments existed simply because of the colonialist legacy of Roman Dutch law still applied in South Africa.
“The restitution of land to black South Africans remains the yardstick against which the sell-out ANC and DA GNU government, against which your performance will be measured,” before predicting that the coalition will be imploded by its ideological contradictions.
In sharp contrast to Hlophe, ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli described the new coalition as one of many chapters in South Africa’s fraught history where those on different sides worked together to shape the future, going back to negotiations between Zulu kings and colonial powers.
“They serve as a poignant reminder of the intricate dynamics that have shaped our past. They highlight the profound significance of alliances and consequences of our choice,” Ntuli said.
“When people are faced with the threat of annihilation they come together and seek out one another to overcome the threat for their continued existence and to thrive. Our democratic break-through is under threat, and it is not business as usual.”
Ntuli named that threat as populism.
“As the ANC we have invited our people to join in a reasoned and robust debate towards the reconstruction and development of our country rather than depending on charismatic populism which often defines our democratic discourse.”
Quoting former party presidents Albert Luthuli and Oliver Tambo, he said the ANC would not waver in its long-held vision of creating a prosperous, peaceful country for all who live in it, black and white.
Ntuli conceded that seeing its voter share slip to 40% had shocked the ANC but said it was the result of a “reversal of democratic gains” between 2008 and 2022.
“Despite all of that, the ANC resolves to forge unity among South Africans,” he said, adding that the new ruling coalition had seen Ramaphosa reach out to other parties to ensure that this can continue what it has set out to achieve since its formation in 1912.
“This unprecedented experience is not a deviation from the national democratic revolution but rather a fulfilment of its objectives, aimed at building a united and a non-racial society.”
DA leader John Steenhuisen, in his reply to the president’s speech, took Ramaphosa’s analogy of the new coalition as a collective of weaver birds rebuilding the country and ran with it.
Like the president, he said the alternative was destructive populism and unchecked corruption.
“For far too long, our country’s enormous potential has been held captive by political forces that seek to break down, rather than build up.
“Time and time again, they have used populist politics and racial rhetoric to break down any attempt at building consensus over the growth-enhancing reforms our economy so desperately needs,” Steenhuisen said.
It was deliberate, because, by sowing division and weakening the state, populist politicians managed to “keep the taps of corruption flowing, and stay out of jail over their many misdeeds,” he said.
Ramaphosa’s government of national unity was the country’s chance to free itself of populism, division and economic decline, he continued.
“This is our opportunity to build South Africa into the prosperous country it can be — together. That is exactly what the Democratic Alliance is going to do in the executive and in parliament.
“The DA’s weaver birds are already furiously at work to deliver on this vision.”
Steenhuisen, one of six ministers from the DA in the new executive, acknowledged continued contestation between his party and the ANC on issues such as the National Health Insurance.
But he was sanguine that a compromise could be found.
“However, in all of these areas of divergence, I am convinced that we can find a way forward,” he said. “It will require us to be honest about disagreements where they do exist, and to work in good faith with one another to find solutions.”
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi interrupted his speech to complain that the new agriculture minister should have been introduced “as a matriculant”, earning a rebuke from the speaker, Thoko Didiza.
Steenhuisen smoothly shot back that the victims of the VBS Mutual Bank scandal drew no comfort from the fact that their savings were looted by people with doctorates — a reference to the allegations contained in testimony of the failed bank’s former chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi that money flowed to EFF leaders Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu.
Malema, in his speech, suggested that Ramaphosa’s pact with the DA was the culmination of a history of collaboration with the country’s white minority.
“Our elders in the struggle have made allegations before in this house that throughout the struggle against apartheid, you were insulated from any form of arrest and harassment by the apartheid system,” he said.
“Towards the end of apartheid you shockingly placed yourself at the centre of the negotiation for the end of apartheid. No one knows how you arrived to be at the centre of the negotiations of our liberation.
“It now explains as to why so many compromises and capitulations were made, leading to a situation where economic power remained in the hands of the white minority.”
After protest from the ANC benches, Malema was cautioned to refrain from making unsubstantiated allegations but when he continued his speech, he added: “We can today confirm that it was pure infiltration by forces of darkness.”
Ramaphosa has previously denied opposition claims in parliament that he collaborated with the apartheid secret police. In the 1970s, he was twice detained for lengthy periods.
The EFF and MK party this week formalised their opposition alliance ahead of Ramaphosa’s address.