ANC heavyweight Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has expressed her disapproval of the government of national unity (GNU), saying that if it had been up to her, the ANC would not have formed a government with the DA.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Dlamini-Zuma said DA ministers publicly defying and contradicting the president revealed there were “problems” within the GNU.
Dlamini-Zuma also revealed she had turned down attempts by MK Party members to recruit her.
She said the DA had nothing in common with the ANC.
“From [the] outside, we can already see problems, in my view. For instance, when the president went to sign the [Basic Education Laws Amendment] Bill, the minister [of basic education] refused to go. You can see from that alone that there are problems.
“The NHI is not supported by the DA. The DA has hardly supported anything that helps black people anyway. But for me I was shocked when the president said Putin is our ally and [John] Steenhuisen said, ‘No, President, he’s your ally, not our ally — not South Africa’s ally.’ Does Steenhuisen think he [himself] is South Africa? Because Russia has always been our ally. Yes, maybe the apartheid [government] and racists were not Russia’s ally, but Russia has always been on the side of the oppressed. It has always been on the side of the majority, it has always been our ally,” she said.
The NHI is not supported by the DA. The DA has hardly supported anything that helps black people
— Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma
Dlamini-Zuma is not the first senior ANC leader to speak out against the party’s decision to form a working relationship with the DA.
The ANC last week held a meeting with the SACP after its general secretary, Solly Mapaila, publicly rebuked the ruling party for forming a government including the DA.
The ANC’s executive committee in Gauteng opted to form a government without the DA after the election.
In KwaZulu-Natal, there are murmurs the ANC in that province is considering pulling out of the government of provincial unity that includes the DA and the IFP.
The party’s decision to form a government at the national level with the DA has divided party structures.
The matter is expected to be a hot potato when the ANC holds a midterm review meeting in the form of its national general council (NGC) next year. President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to go to the NGC and try to sell the GNU as the most viable option for the party in the years ahead.
However, his opponents are expected to use the meeting to show that entering into a GNU that includes the DA was a grave mistake.
Dlamini-Zuma said the GNU was an ANC decision, but if it had been up to her, she would not have gone the DA route.
“If you want my personal view, I wouldn’t have gone [into government] with the DA because of its history, because of what it stands for. But the ANC went with it, so we have to see if it works. But from where I sit, I have just [given] you one glaring example [of how things are going wrong]... No, there are problems there. But that is my personal view.”
Dlamini-Zuma is widely regarded as one of Ramaphosa’s opponents in the ANC, as she challenged him for leadership of the party first in 2017 and then again in 2022, when she failed to mount a strong campaign. She refused to say what she thought of the president’s performance since he took power, saying it was for the voters to judge him. However, she said the party had made “strategic mistakes” that had led to its electoral decline in the recent polls.
“We did not really concentrate on ensuring we remained rooted on the ground ... that our structures on the ground were strong. Because, at the end of the day, if I’m in [an electoral] ward, I’m not going to say, ‘What is the MEC doing?’ if there [has been] a death in a family. But I would expect the ANC branch to come and assist [with that matter],” she said.
“Also [with regard] to not having structures on the ground, at a leadership level we should be responsive [and do] simple things. One of the ANC values is humility. I think we are beginning the lose that. We say we are the servants of the people, [but] we can’t be servants and be arrogant.”
She said another issue that may have cost the ANC was land. She said the land question would “always be a problem” for the ANC if it was not resolved. In addition, the failure to ensure service delivery was a factor in the decline in the ANC’s electoral fortunes.
Though the emergence of the MK Party had come as a surprise to her, she said it was clear there were ANC supporters who were not going to vote for the ruling party in the last elections.
“I didn’t expect the formation of the [MK Party]. But I did think there would be people who wouldn’t vote at all, because they were felt despondent about not connecting with the ANC. Maybe we were not delivering services properly as they would have liked us to, we were not as humble as they would have liked. There have been quite a lot of people in our strongholds who have not been voting.
“[The] MK [Party] happened, and it happened quickly. They did eat into our support base, and that’s also probably why the ANC got less than 50%.”
She also revealed that some MK Party members had tried to recruit her but she had turned them down.
“They tried, but I decided I was staying in the ANC.”
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