South Africans have an unparalleled ability to make lemonade when their government continues to hand them lemons. Sometimes, however, our desperation to find hope in the hopeless sees us putting our faith in places that are undeserving of our belief.
There are few better examples of hope being misplaced more delusional than in the idea of a grand coalition between the ANC and the DA, as espoused by News24 Editor Adriaan Basson in his piece One step closer to an ANC-DA grand coalition – and why it’s good news.
Basson describes the moment as both politically significant and good for South Africa. In any country the official opposition getting into bed with the governing party they have opposed for 29 years is unquestionably politically significant. But as for good for South Africa, that would be wishful thinking.
The essence of Basson’s position is the rather premature conclusion that the group of parties (DA, IFP, FF Plus, ActionSA, UIM and SNP) will not have the legs to get over the 50 plus 1% needed to remove the ANC in 2024. In making this assumption Basson relies upon 2019 electoral data where these parties approached the 30% mark as grounds to assume that the group will not cross the finish line in 2024.
In relying on data that will be 5 years old by election day next year, in a country where an hour is a long time in politics, is the fact that most of these parties continue to show rapid and sustained growth since the 2019 general elections. Consider alone the growth of the IFP at the expense of the ANC since this time and you will see where I am going with this. Next pause to consider that ActionSA did not exist in 2019, stood in 2021 and became the 6th largest party nationally (2.38%) despite contesting only 6 municipalities out of 278. ActionSA will now contest in all nine provinces and will be available to all South Africans across the country.
Perhaps the greatest error Basson makes in condemning these parties to less than 51% next year is the 27 million South Africans who have given up on the political system either by not voting or not registering to vote. These people are nearly 3 times more than the total of all South Africans who voted in 2021, many of them have left the ANC and they do not vote because they have never seen anything coherent that can replace an ANC that they now know will lose its majority for the first-time next year.
I think Basson would be well-advised to reconsider writing off this group of parties, especially when you consider that a number of other parties (PA, Rize Mzansi, BOSA & the ACDP) remain ideologically aligned to joining the group even if they have shown resistance to date because of how the concept emerged.
With this addressed, I turn now to Basson’s assumption that an ANC & DA coming together is good for South Africa. In his defense, he does not stand alone in the ‘least worst’ rationale for establishing a government with the DA having floated this idea regularly before, during and after the announcement of a so-called ‘moonshot pact.’ To consider the dimensions of how bad an idea this is, consider the following.
An official opposition that goes into coalition with the ruling party ceases to be an opposition and leaves this vital role empty in our democratic space. The silencing of the guns of the official opposition to prop up a criminally inclined entity like the ANC is hardly something which should have anyone applauding much less the editor of a major news outlet.
The notion that a DA/ANC coalition is less worse than an ANC/EFF coalition requires a magnifying glass rather than being self-evidently true. Proponents in favour of an ANC/DA tie-up miss two most fundamental points. Firstly, the larger party in a coalition always dominates proceedings and the idea that a smaller party will exact reforms is not based on a real understanding of how coalitions work.
Secondly, and most importantly, the President of the ANC has failed to reform his own party. His cabinet is the same, the ongoing corruption has worsened, continuous load-shedding is at an all-time worse, Jacob Zuma’s cabinet remains very much in place and what is good for the ANC still comes before what is good for South Africa. The idea that either John Steenhuisen or Julius Malema will change the ANC in ways that Cyril Ramaphosa has failed to do so, is folly.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the madness and imagine such a coalition practically for one moment when the next Phala Phala scandal breaks (because in the ANC the next such story is never far away). Now a coalition partner will not be able to make strong speeches condemning the President.
They will need to form part of the historical trend of defending the indefensible and, ultimately, vote to defeat the very motions of no confidence and impeachment proceedings they have championed in the past. How does a coalition partner fight corruption while in coalition with the ANC?
Ultimately it will always come down to either looking the other way or walking away. Given that the whole purpose of a grand coalition is the resultant stability, walking away will not be an option and that leaves only looking the other way.
The truth is that neither the DA nor the EFF in coalition will dictate to the ANC how a government will be run. The entire institution of government has become inextricably interwoven with the ANC courtesy of cadre deployment. The ANC’s policies, protocols and processes are now inextricably that of the government.
Does anyone imagine either the DA or the EFF able to reverse those trends? Will cadre deployment really stop because the DA makes this a condition of coalitions? Will land reform accelerate because the EFF demands this. Of course, we know that government would continue to do what is has before because experienced ANC cadres will run circles around the relative inexperience both the EFF and DA have at a national government level.
Basson begins his piece by reflecting on market research which finds that 75% of all South Africans believe the country is moving in the wrong direction. How then can hope lie in partnership with those who have been moving South Africa in the wrong direction? Put simply, South Africa cannot be fixed in partnership with those who have broken it.
Change has only one midwife in South Africa, and that is the multi-party pact that will meet on 16 & 17 August. It is only from this group of parties, and those who are yet to join it, that real change can arise to produce real solutions for our country.
Why an ANC-DA grand coalition in South Africa is delusional
South Africans have an unparalleled ability to make lemonade when their government continues to hand them lemons. Sometimes, however, our desperation to find hope in the hopeless sees us putting our faith in places that are undeserving of our belief.
There are few better examples of hope being misplaced more delusional than in the idea of a grand coalition between the ANC and the DA, as espoused by News24 Editor Adriaan Basson in his piece One step closer to an ANC-DA grand coalition – and why it’s good news.
Basson describes the moment as both politically significant and good for South Africa. In any country the official opposition getting into bed with the governing party they have opposed for 29 years is unquestionably politically significant. But as for good for South Africa, that would be wishful thinking.
The essence of Basson’s position is the rather premature conclusion that the group of parties (DA, IFP, FF Plus, ActionSA, UIM and SNP) will not have the legs to get over the 50 plus 1% needed to remove the ANC in 2024. In making this assumption Basson relies upon 2019 electoral data where these parties approached the 30% mark as grounds to assume that the group will not cross the finish line in 2024.
In relying on data that will be 5 years old by election day next year, in a country where an hour is a long time in politics, is the fact that most of these parties continue to show rapid and sustained growth since the 2019 general elections. Consider alone the growth of the IFP at the expense of the ANC since this time and you will see where I am going with this. Next pause to consider that ActionSA did not exist in 2019, stood in 2021 and became the 6th largest party nationally (2.38%) despite contesting only 6 municipalities out of 278. ActionSA will now contest in all nine provinces and will be available to all South Africans across the country.
Perhaps the greatest error Basson makes in condemning these parties to less than 51% next year is the 27 million South Africans who have given up on the political system either by not voting or not registering to vote. These people are nearly 3 times more than the total of all South Africans who voted in 2021, many of them have left the ANC and they do not vote because they have never seen anything coherent that can replace an ANC that they now know will lose its majority for the first-time next year.
I think Basson would be well-advised to reconsider writing off this group of parties, especially when you consider that a number of other parties (PA, Rize Mzansi, BOSA & the ACDP) remain ideologically aligned to joining the group even if they have shown resistance to date because of how the concept emerged.
With this addressed, I turn now to Basson’s assumption that an ANC & DA coming together is good for South Africa. In his defense, he does not stand alone in the ‘least worst’ rationale for establishing a government with the DA having floated this idea regularly before, during and after the announcement of a so-called ‘moonshot pact.’ To consider the dimensions of how bad an idea this is, consider the following.
An official opposition that goes into coalition with the ruling party ceases to be an opposition and leaves this vital role empty in our democratic space. The silencing of the guns of the official opposition to prop up a criminally inclined entity like the ANC is hardly something which should have anyone applauding much less the editor of a major news outlet.
The notion that a DA/ANC coalition is less worse than an ANC/EFF coalition requires a magnifying glass rather than being self-evidently true. Proponents in favour of an ANC/DA tie-up miss two most fundamental points. Firstly, the larger party in a coalition always dominates proceedings and the idea that a smaller party will exact reforms is not based on a real understanding of how coalitions work.
Secondly, and most importantly, the President of the ANC has failed to reform his own party. His cabinet is the same, the ongoing corruption has worsened, continuous load-shedding is at an all-time worse, Jacob Zuma’s cabinet remains very much in place and what is good for the ANC still comes before what is good for South Africa. The idea that either John Steenhuisen or Julius Malema will change the ANC in ways that Cyril Ramaphosa has failed to do so, is folly.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the madness and imagine such a coalition practically for one moment when the next Phala Phala scandal breaks (because in the ANC the next such story is never far away). Now a coalition partner will not be able to make strong speeches condemning the President.
They will need to form part of the historical trend of defending the indefensible and, ultimately, vote to defeat the very motions of no confidence and impeachment proceedings they have championed in the past. How does a coalition partner fight corruption while in coalition with the ANC?
Ultimately it will always come down to either looking the other way or walking away. Given that the whole purpose of a grand coalition is the resultant stability, walking away will not be an option and that leaves only looking the other way.
The truth is that neither the DA nor the EFF in coalition will dictate to the ANC how a government will be run. The entire institution of government has become inextricably interwoven with the ANC courtesy of cadre deployment. The ANC’s policies, protocols and processes are now inextricably that of the government.
Does anyone imagine either the DA or the EFF able to reverse those trends? Will cadre deployment really stop because the DA makes this a condition of coalitions? Will land reform accelerate because the EFF demands this. Of course, we know that government would continue to do what is has before because experienced ANC cadres will run circles around the relative inexperience both the EFF and DA have at a national government level.
Basson begins his piece by reflecting on market research which finds that 75% of all South Africans believe the country is moving in the wrong direction. How then can hope lie in partnership with those who have been moving South Africa in the wrong direction? Put simply, South Africa cannot be fixed in partnership with those who have broken it.
Change has only one midwife in South Africa, and that is the multi-party pact that will meet on 16 & 17 August. It is only from this group of parties, and those who are yet to join it, that real change can arise to produce real solutions for our country.