The seismic shifts that followed the 2024 General Elections have realigned South African politics in ways that no voter would have imagined much less consented to. As any scholar of the laws of gravity will tell you, for each and every action there needs to be an opposing reaction.
It is against this background that ActionSA can confirm media reports from last December last year that it is actively engaging with other like-minded parties. However, before explaining these engagements, it is first vital to understand how the formation of the GNU has occasioned the need for parties outside of its ranks to begin talking.
Despite 30 years of the ANC’s track record in government being on display across our country in technicolour detail, opposition parties swarmed greedily to enter government and enjoy the same perks in government that they vehemently opposed for years.
Change seems elusive now after six months into the work of the GNU (10% of the term of office) because not a single policy reform of any kind has been announced. No new direction has been set for our job crisis or our criminal justice system and the excessive culture of government remains untouched with a bloated cabinet that continues to reshuffle corrupt ministers around.
As a matter of fact, when you consider the question of how this GNU is different from the ANC government that preceded it, people start to feel discomfort. Any objective assessment would reveal that this GNU has become nothing but an implementing agent of failed ANC policies. NHI and BELA have proceeded like nothing has changed because it hasn’t.Discredited policies like BBBEE and cadre deployment remain official government practice. The NPA still cannot access the State Capture Commission files much less prosecute anyone and our self-injurious foreign policy continues unabated.
The much-vaunted June 2024 policy lekgotla of the GNU was a long time ago, and yet, it has been radio silence ever since on what changes South Africans can expect from this GNU government. In the absence of such, an image is starting to crystalise that it is going to be business as usual in the union buildings.
It is against this background that the decision of parties like ActionSA to remain outside of the GNU has proven vital because the voice of the opposition has been bought and paid for. Now more than ever it is vital for voices to emerge that hold this colossus of a GNU(constituting over 70% of parliament) to account for its actions and, clearly, its inactions too.This is what ActionSA briefed the ANC about when it declined its reasons for not accepting the invitation to join the GNU government.
With political realignment having seen the co-option of former opposition parties into implementing failed ANC policies, the need has now emerged for parties like ActionSA to engage with other like-minded parties and explore realignment outside of the GNU.
For too long South Africans have been confronted with comically long ballot papers, many of whom speaking roughly the same language, and wondered why these parties do not come together in their interests. What has kept these parties apart has been inward looking political self-interest rather than the citizen-centric thinking that acts on the national need for the realignment of a coherent alternative.
Circumstances now require political parties and leaders to evaluate whether they may have more in common than what keeps them apart. South Africans could not care less about the internal party political considerations of a fragmented array of parties. Rather, they are seized by their rising cost of living, the education and safety of their family and whether they will join the ranks of other jobless households around them. While it is undeniably early days for this project, there does appear the will for there to be a way to align behind a political alternative to these challenges facing South Africans.
There are many models of multi-party collaboration to be explored in these engagements. An easy starting point is in parliament where these parties need to be represented in a huge number of parliamentary oversight committees – a function that would be more readily achieved with a symbiotic multi-party co-operation. Parties in parliament are limited in the number of questions and motions they can move but, together, a multi-party group will be more effective in using these vital levers to hold government to account.
Beyond parliament emerges the question of relationships that range from pre-election pacts to looser franchise-model agreements that retain individual identity all the way to mergers that contest under a single entity. Such agreements will undoubtedly be challenging but possible if their exploration is guided by imperative that the seismic realignment that has generated this GNU requires a perhaps not equal but opposite realignment on the other side with rationally minded parties.
Notwithstanding the initial optimism behind the GNU, South Africa needs a strong alternative that can hold this government to account and develop an electoral alternative for those who aspire for actual change in their lifetimes.
Realigning Politics In A Post-GNU South Africa
The seismic shifts that followed the 2024 General Elections have realigned South African politics in ways that no voter would have imagined much less consented to. As any scholar of the laws of gravity will tell you, for each and every action there needs to be an opposing reaction.
It is against this background that ActionSA can confirm media reports from last December last year that it is actively engaging with other like-minded parties. However, before explaining these engagements, it is first vital to understand how the formation of the GNU has occasioned the need for parties outside of its ranks to begin talking.
Despite 30 years of the ANC’s track record in government being on display across our country in technicolour detail, opposition parties swarmed greedily to enter government and enjoy the same perks in government that they vehemently opposed for years.
Change seems elusive now after six months into the work of the GNU (10% of the term of office) because not a single policy reform of any kind has been announced. No new direction has been set for our job crisis or our criminal justice system and the excessive culture of government remains untouched with a bloated cabinet that continues to reshuffle corrupt ministers around.
As a matter of fact, when you consider the question of how this GNU is different from the ANC government that preceded it, people start to feel discomfort. Any objective assessment would reveal that this GNU has become nothing but an implementing agent of failed ANC policies. NHI and BELA have proceeded like nothing has changed because it hasn’t.Discredited policies like BBBEE and cadre deployment remain official government practice. The NPA still cannot access the State Capture Commission files much less prosecute anyone and our self-injurious foreign policy continues unabated.
The much-vaunted June 2024 policy lekgotla of the GNU was a long time ago, and yet, it has been radio silence ever since on what changes South Africans can expect from this GNU government. In the absence of such, an image is starting to crystalise that it is going to be business as usual in the union buildings.
It is against this background that the decision of parties like ActionSA to remain outside of the GNU has proven vital because the voice of the opposition has been bought and paid for. Now more than ever it is vital for voices to emerge that hold this colossus of a GNU(constituting over 70% of parliament) to account for its actions and, clearly, its inactions too.This is what ActionSA briefed the ANC about when it declined its reasons for not accepting the invitation to join the GNU government.
With political realignment having seen the co-option of former opposition parties into implementing failed ANC policies, the need has now emerged for parties like ActionSA to engage with other like-minded parties and explore realignment outside of the GNU.
For too long South Africans have been confronted with comically long ballot papers, many of whom speaking roughly the same language, and wondered why these parties do not come together in their interests. What has kept these parties apart has been inward looking political self-interest rather than the citizen-centric thinking that acts on the national need for the realignment of a coherent alternative.
Circumstances now require political parties and leaders to evaluate whether they may have more in common than what keeps them apart. South Africans could not care less about the internal party political considerations of a fragmented array of parties. Rather, they are seized by their rising cost of living, the education and safety of their family and whether they will join the ranks of other jobless households around them. While it is undeniably early days for this project, there does appear the will for there to be a way to align behind a political alternative to these challenges facing South Africans.
There are many models of multi-party collaboration to be explored in these engagements. An easy starting point is in parliament where these parties need to be represented in a huge number of parliamentary oversight committees – a function that would be more readily achieved with a symbiotic multi-party co-operation. Parties in parliament are limited in the number of questions and motions they can move but, together, a multi-party group will be more effective in using these vital levers to hold government to account.
Beyond parliament emerges the question of relationships that range from pre-election pacts to looser franchise-model agreements that retain individual identity all the way to mergers that contest under a single entity. Such agreements will undoubtedly be challenging but possible if their exploration is guided by imperative that the seismic realignment that has generated this GNU requires a perhaps not equal but opposite realignment on the other side with rationally minded parties.
Notwithstanding the initial optimism behind the GNU, South Africa needs a strong alternative that can hold this government to account and develop an electoral alternative for those who aspire for actual change in their lifetimes.