There is a strong push within the opposition coalition pact discussion to cast the net wider to improve the chances of pulling together the minimum of 51% support needed to unseat the ANC in next year’s elections.
ActionSA chair Michael Beaumont told the Sunday Times that his party had voiced its concerns about the DA’s approach of excluding from the moonshot process parties that previously worked with the ANC. This was one of the matters opposition parties hoped to iron out at their national convention next month.
“This pact is designed to achieve a majority in 2024, yet some of the decision-making about which parties are to be excluded seems to be in contradiction to that principle. If you’re telling people that the ANC-EFF is a doomsday scenario, what’s worse than doomsday? This is where we get concerned.”
Beaumont said ActionSA’s aim with the pact was to achieve a majority and it would abandon the initiative should it fall short of that.
“We don’t want to be part of a minority bloc. You can’t fix South Africa from the opposition benches. We are going to apply ourselves in this process within the context of a group that has a majority, or potentially not at all.”
Parties that are part of the pact include the DA, the IFP, FF+, ActionSA, the United Independent Movement and the Spectrum National Party.
Beaumont questioned the DA’s logic in rejecting COPE as a potential coalition partner while being willing to accept another ANC breakaway party, the UDM. The mission to dethrone the ruling party would need a “broad church”, he said.
ActionSA was on the same page as the DA in terms of shutting the door to the EFF.
“[But] outside the ambit of the ANC and EFF, we need to be accepting of people who share common values on how to save the country,” Beaumont said.
“There is one provision, that there is a values alignment. We need to ensure that parties have similar views on constitutionalism, that they have a shared understanding in terms of the economy, ending load-shedding, fixing education, et cetera. Once people align around those things, the broadest possible church will be assembled.”
He said ActionSA would campaign vigorously in the run-up to the elections and would not treat its partners in the pact with kid gloves.
“Even if the DA is in government in the Western Cape, ActionSA will contest all provinces unapologetically. And we will campaign hard. We are never going to be muzzled from doing that. The people of the Western Cape need choices if there are governance failures in the province.”
Beaumont acknowledged that coalition attempts at local government level involving ActionSA and the DA had been unhappy, but this should not prevent anyone from trying again.
“A lot of parties were angry with how the DA handled the coalition in the metros, but the national project of 2024 cannot be deterred by it. If we go into the national project carrying the baggage of our previous coalition experience, it will not succeed. Those lessons must be taken in and not replicated at a national level. We need to be a viable alternative in 2024 and that can’t be dependent on whether the DA gets the picture at a local government level or not.”
Despite parties being disgruntled at the DA for jumping the gun and announcing the moonshot pact, which arose from informal meetings with various party leaders, the announcement by its leader John Steenhuisen at the party’s April congress was generally welcomed.
Beaumont said one of the issues now under discussion is to replace “moonshot pact” with a new name and logo endorsed by all those participating.
He said a starting point for the opposition parties should be a joint manifesto.
“Coalitions have produced instability in many ways because they centre around power-sharing. It’s an arrangement of who gets what and allowing them to do whatever they want with their positions,” Beaumont said, calling this a “false” approach.
“What should be happening is a joint manifesto that should include the positions of all parties in the coalition and ensure they are adequately expressed.
“We must understand the difference between coalitions and co-governance … [So] even if the minister of police comes from another party, I as an ActionSA leader can look at that department and see it as implementing a manifesto that we all agreed on, which includes our position. That’s co-governance, and that’s what we need to move towards.”
The opposition convention will take place on August 16-17 in Johannesburg.
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