Amid ongoing talks, bets are on the GNU will remain intact

As the crisis between the two biggest parties in the ruling coalition stretched into its second week, neither side was willing to walk away nor to make concessions to swiftly end an impasse impacting investor sentiment.

In the ranks of the ANC, the mood towards the Democratic Alliance (DA) had not lifted, making it hard for those who risked political capital on a post-coalition pact with the former opposition to argue for its future.

“The anger and frustration is real,” a well-placed source said as the party mulled whether it needed to persevere with its fraught arrangement with the DA for the sake of the stability of the government.

“It is not mild, the budget was just the final straw. Even people who for a very long time have been pro-DA in the GNU [government of national unity], have been supportive and arguing for working with them, they have now had it.”

The ANC was reserving its options by holding talks with ActionSA, the six-seat party that is outside the coalition but proved useful in getting the fiscal framework adopted by the National Assembly last week when the DA refused to vote for it.

That, ANC sources said, wore out the patience of decision-makers who viewed the DA’s role in the 10-party coalition government as a transparent attempt to “weaken the ANC from within the coalition” for its own electoral gain.

But the sobering thought for the ANC was to what extent, beyond getting the budget across the line, it could count on ActionSA as a stabilising force for the coalition.

ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has confirmed that he held talks with the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) on Wednesday. The DA secured a similar invitation from ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula on Wednesday, but declined on the grounds of short notice. 

“We find it odd that they request such a meeting at such a short period of time. We will discuss tonight to find out what to do,” said a source in the party’s federal executive, which met on Wednesday evening.

The source added that sentiment in the DA on whether to stay in the coalition or withdraw was deeply divided and shifting as the days wore on, and that there was ongoing uncertainty as to where Helen Zille, the chairperson of the structure, stood. 

Among the DA’s six cabinet ministers, there was a clear willingness to continue working with the ANC.

“The mood of the room is very tense because people known to support certain teams have switched. Many are against walking away,” the source said.

Public pronouncements from Zille and Mbalula showed both playing a game of political chicken.

Zille told reporters the DA would leave the coalition if Ramaphosa dared to fire one of the party’s ministers from the cabinet.

The remarks came shortly after Mbalula told a media briefing the DA should either serve “divorce papers” or provide an explanation as to how it expected to stay in the coalition after voting against the fiscal framework.

“If the ANC tomorrow takes a decision that we are abandoning the GNU, we are out — it is the ANC’s decision. The DA must then answer the question, not us,” Mbalula said. “If you are part of a government, and you don’t agree with the budget, how do you continue to sit there? It’s a logical question.”

By Thursday afternoon, he had also invited the Economic Freedom Fighters for talks, though President Cyril Ramaphosa’s camp cannot countenance a coalition arrangement with Julius Malema.

The DA declining talks at this stage has inevitably delayed efforts to find a way forward, more so because a meeting Ramaphosa had scheduled with leaders of parties in the coalition for Friday has been postponed.

It has left Mbalula to continue his consultations, while ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli was holding engagements with fellow party whips to discuss not only the coalition but the remaining business of getting budget legislation passed by the legislature.

Several sources said that this was now the main focus for all parties, except the DA, which continued to link its position on the budget to political concessions it has sought to extract from the ANC.

“This is essential because while much of the market instability is obviously related to external forces, and current global events, an element is due to the fact that the government seemingly cannot agree on the budget, and hence, once this is adopted, we should see some stability return.”

Except the DA and the Freedom Front Plus, all parties to the coalition voted in favour of the fiscal framework and many said they shared in the ANC’s frustration with the continuous conflict in the structure.

“The Inkatha Freedom Party is truly fed-up with the situation, and they are not the only ones. The level of resentment is intense. Parties are questioning how they can continue working with a party that is intent on opposing the government from within.”

On Monday IFP leader Velenkosini Hlabisa urged for stability in the GNU, saying the fallout over the fiscal framework should not be allowed to fracture the coalition.

He said the debate over a contentious VAT increase should not be weaponised to collapse the GNU or derail its primary mandate of restoring economic stability and adequate service delivery.

Hlabisa added that while the IFP had voted in favour of the budget and the VAT increase, it would negotiate with its GNU partners for the tax hike to be a temporary measure, while acknowledging that VAT has never gone down before.

“If it never happened, it doesn’t mean it will not happen going forward. I think it’s as simple as that. The difference now, there is a commitment of 10 political parties, not one political party. 10 different political parties with divergent views,” he said.

“We will be coming with strategies as to how to grow the economy. If we are successful in growing the economy by pressing the right buttons at the right time, there’s nothing that will prevent this 0.5 percent increase from being removed.”

The other parties in the coalition are particularly irritated that the DA did not engage with them on key issues, but saw its only negotiating partner as the ANC. Hence there was support for Mbalula’s insistence that the rules of engagement within the coalition will have to change.

Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi told the Mail & Guardian: “The rules of engagement will be reconfigured. What we can no longer have is each of the individual parties behaving as though they only have a bilateral obligation to the ANC. Whoever is part of the arrangement, needs to have obligations to one another. 

“There needs to be a clear programme that is endorsed by everyone. You do not get to be in government and opposition at the same time. That cannot continue. Otherwise we have an inherently dysfunctional coalition.”

Despite the delayed talks, and the hard line Mbalula was taking in his public statements on the subject, the smart money in the ANC and the rest of the coalition remained on an eventual agreement to keep the DA inside the government. 

This has much to do with the risks of trying to continue as a minority government, as well as opting for one with the slimmest of majorities which inviting a notoriously erratic Herman Mashaba into the coalition would offer in the absence of the DA’s 87 seats in the National Assembly.

“How stable a partnership can you have with, in particular, Mashaba? Of all the small parties he is by far the most volatile,” an insider said.

“Now if with his six seats in parliament is the one who is giving the GNU, without the DA, the majority in the chamber, and he remains such a volatile character, then you’ve got a problem and the perceptions of instability within the GNU will not correct themselves.”

On the other hand, the same source said, the question was how much stability could be attached to the DA remaining in the coalition when it has time and again proven itself to be an unreliable partner.

Therefore there would be pressure on the DA to show that it was prepared to engage with its coalition partner in a more constructive fashion. It could do so by agreeing to withdraw the court challenges it has filed to the Expropriation Act and the passage of the fiscal framework.

This is unlikely, but so is the ANC meeting all of the concessions the DA has demanded in return for backing the staggered 1% VAT increase in the budget Godongwana tabled in mid-March.

The ANC has agreed to a spending review but its attitude to the last of the DA’s demands, that its deputy minister of finance Ashor Sarupen be brought in to co-chair Operation Vulindlela has now hardened. 

The unit is instrumental in driving structural reforms and there is fear that including the DA in its oversight will complicate the vital process.

Hence, the question is what face-saving options the ANC can offer the DA in talks to preserve the coalition.

Confirmation that this was indication came in the form of comments from ActionSA chairperson Micheal Beaumont who told the Mail & Guardian the party was not available to talk about joining the GNU until the VAT increase had been removed.

He said the coalition had a number of structural failures which would make it difficult for them to join it because it was essentially a grand coalition between the ANC and DA.

“If 70% of the seats in parliament are represented in this GNU, we are not sure what value we would add. In its current form, we would absolutely not join the GNU,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want to say if the DA left then we would consider and if they didn’t, we would consider. Our issue is that 70% of the parliament parties are in the GNU, which is bad for the opposition. If those numbers were to change, we would reconsider. It’s not about the DA.”

“Right now our seats are better used as a constructive opposition because the EFF and MK party do not have any idea of how to be an opposition party.”