/ 17 April 2023

The method behind the madness of the DA’s Moonshot Pact

Voting 1907 Dv
In preparation for the possible dip of the ANC majority in next year's national elections, the official opposition Democratic Alliance is looking at co-opting the international community to ensure a peaceful state transition. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

“Coalition government” is the hot new phrase for South Africans with their ears to the ground and eyes fixed firmly on the national elections in 2024. For the first time in our short democratic history, the nation has to wrestle with the reality that an outright ANC majority is not necessarily assured. 

The ever more imminent notion that the presidency and cabinet will no longer consist of members exclusively from one party, but rather an amalgamation of political actors, raises a myriad questions, not just for voters, but for the parties themselves. Those who are in power, or those who wish to be, are having to tackle this election cycle differently to the way they have in the past. And nowhere were these changes in strategy clearer to see than in the elective federal congress of the main opposition party, the good old Democratic Alliance (DA). 

During the DA’s federal conference at the beginning of this month, the party re-elected John Steenhuisen as its leader and outlined how they intend to approach the 2024 elections. It amounted to an open call for parties not named the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to join forces as one collective opposition unit. 

In the words of the man himself, “In my capacity as leader, not only of the DA but of the opposition alternative in this country, our party will immediately initiate a process to form a pre-election Moonshot Pact with like-minded political parties, civil society organisations and civic movements to defeat the ANC, to keep the EFF out, and to inaugurate a new national opposition coalition government.”

The Moonshot Pact seemingly rests on the simple premise that the ANC and EFF need to be kept out of government. The framing that the DA chooses to use when explaining its idea is explicit — they are intending to “unite all the forces in this country that stand opposed to the ANC and the EFF”. The reasons they would choose to set up their strategy in such a way are threefold. 

First, they are attempting to capitalise on the voter flight away from the ANC. The writing on the wall is clear — a large portion of South Africans are frustrated and fed up with the ANC and its incompetencies. Our most recent municipal elections made this glaringly obvious, with the ruling party receiving only 45.59% support, the first time in the party’s history that it dropped below 50%. 

There will be many people who have historically voted ANC who will not do so in 2024, and the DA is positioning itself in an attempt to assimilate as many of these voters into their constituency as possible. But it recognises the reality that not every voter who leaves the ANC will turn to them, hence the call for a broad-based opposition coalition that could appeal to them. 

The characterisation of this coalition as one that exists in opposition to not only the ANC, but the EFF as well, is particularly interesting. Steenhuisen recognises that the established voter base of this apparent coalition is more likely than not to be wary of alliances made with EFF leader Julius Malema and his members and therefore does not want to take the risk of alienating them from this proposed alternative. 

He is also aware that the path that involves bringing together an opposition coalition without the EFF is probably easier to construct than one with them in it, based simply on the fact that other parties would be less willing to buy into the idea if the red berets were to be present. 

The white and middle-class voters that the Moonshot Pact is attempting to entice to the DA’s side identify with a set of ideologies and parties that are antithetical to those espoused by Malema. The weigh-up that was made by the DA was that they have more to lose by including the EFF in this coalition versus the voter base that they were to gain by having them, and their decision was resoundingly clear. 

The DA seems to be hedging their anti-Julius bets on the idea that he and his party will not be perceived as an opposition but rather as a government that would be ANC adjacent. The vicinity of the EFF to the ruling party in the makeup of the members in it, as well as their perceived willingness to work together, is what Steenhuisen is hoping will divert voters away from them as well as making a coalition exclusive of red overalls more appealing. 

Second, the DA wants to gain back those individuals who fled the party in search of a more robust opposition, such as the Freedom Front Plus or ActionSA. Chairperson of the Federal Council and the Federal Executive Helen Zille’s blue army is cognisant of the fact that their performance in 2019, which saw their percentage of the popular vote decrease from 22,3% to 20,77%, comes as a result of their voter base turning to alternative opposition parties due to the lack of action on the DA’s part, because they were better able to identify with the message and makeup of another party, and so forth. 

What the Moonshot Pact represents is a mechanism that would allow them to accrue the benefits of restoring this group without having to actively convert voters from another party to theirs. Instead of jostling over a small percentage of the population, they can rather use the ties that people have to these parties to bring together a larger electorate who would feel more represented with a government structured this way rather than having to pledge allegiance to a single party entirely. 

Finally, there seems to be a tacit admission by the DA that the ANC and EFF are likely to partner up in some way. This means that they can either jockey with each party for the alliance of the other or exclude them from the conversation entirely. Steenhuisen himself seemed to paint this picture in his speech, stating, “We realise that the mission to save our country from the ANC and its Doomsday Coalition with the EFF, is urgent.” With the context that the party is choosing to use being one that has already wedded ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa’s party and its former Youth League leader, the Moonshot Pact sets itself up in a way as to be the other choice in such an arrangement. 

While the Moonshot Pact is a clear outlining of political strategy by the country’s largest opposition party, whether or not it is successful can only be determined as the year progresses and we get closer to 2024. 

At the moment, the idea that a successful coalition government would not include either the ANC or EFF seems far-fetched. The DA has a year to challenge this narrative. While trying to sell this idea to voters and other opposition parties, the DA is going to have to contend with the monochromatic makeup of its leadership structure as well as attempting to not dissuade other political organisations from the coalition in the process of centring itself within it. 

All of this hinges on the combined decline of the ANC and the EFF — that is to say there are a number of dominoes that need to fall before the Moonshot Pact can even be evaluated. But, ultimately, Steenhuisen has staked his political life on it working and therefore the buildup to the next elections is going to focus greatly on how the DA and other opposition parties position themselves in preparation for what is likely to be a historic vote.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.