GNU is like an arranged marriage with an expiry date

From a distance, it looked beautiful. The engulfing sound of the 21-gun salute. The battalion march-past. The singing of the national anthem. Choral music filling the amphitheatre of the country’s seat of power.

Add the aerobatic exploits of the South African Air Force in a variety of aircraft including the Gripen and Rooivalk. We do put together a spectacle for the world, on occasion. Yet, the process to get to the Union Building was like drawing blood from a stone. The queues at accredited centres resembled mini-voting day. The disorganisation was almost as if those in the queues were not the president’s guests.

But inaugurations often imbue one with a sense of pride and belonging. Some might say that patriotism best captures it.

It is even more so when the inauguration speech is well-written, as was President Cyril Ramaphosa’s. It was heartfelt and relevant. He told us of the progress made and how “our society remains deeply unequal and highly polarised. There are toxic cleavages and an incipient social fragmentation that can easily turn into instability”.

He made the right-sounding promises, as any self-respecting politician would. “The people have demanded an end to the theft of public funds and the capture of the state. Above all, the people of South Africa have stressed that they are impatient with political bickering and the endless blame game among politicians and political parties. They want us to put their needs and aspirations first and they want us to work together for the sake of our country.”

This was so true, yet so unrealistic. Just as the inauguration looked beautiful on television but was an administrative nightmare for the president’s guests, the nirvana described by Ramaphosa is nigh unachievable.

At a time when the ANC is at its weakest, its opponents and willing members of the grand coalition, also known as the government of national unity, don’t have a duty to help the ANC recover. The ANC too may be humbled but would not voluntarily strengthen its opponents.

Yes, they both will try to avoid a collapse of the state because everyone will lose. They all want what will help them improve their prospects in the next elections.

For the DA and other opposition parties getting into government at national level the strategic gain of overseeing key ministries is simply that they get an opportunity to show South Africans why they should be entrusted with a full mandate to govern in the future. It’s never what you gain now — but how what you gain now helps you win the next elections.

The parties new to cabinet will get to use the ministries to campaign non-stop until the next elections. They are most likely to sort out the auditor-general findings, send a message that they, unlike the ANC, are now managing public finances scrupulously. They will streamline processes to ensure they deliver services at a pace never seen before at a national level.

The parties new to cabinet will get to use the ministries to campaign non-stop until the next elections

Being in a GNU is always a temporary arrangement for all concerned. It’s like an arranged marriage with an expiry date that both parties are looking forward to.

From a political marketing point of view, being within the GNU is way better than sitting on the sidelines being the best at criticising while others solve challenges faced by millions of South Africans. When you are outside, you hope those within mess up. When they get it right, you disappear into insignificance. This is why the EFF might live to regret placing demands on the table — gifting the ANC an excuse to discard it.

The “incipient social fragmentation” that Ramaphosa spoke about will force the parties to bicker and even threaten to leave the GNU when they feel their opportunities to showcase their capabilities are being short-circuited. This is why the question as to “who gets what cabinet posts” has been so critical.

If you accept dormant ministries, you’re in cabinet only by name. If you get key ministries, you get the chance to showcase your manifesto to a point that if the GNU collapses midway through the term and an election is called, you don’t need much funding to campaign because your work already completed becomes the best campaigning tool possible.

For obvious reasons, the ANC would want to keep the DA and others from security portfolios such as state security, justice, police — just in case an adventurous DA minister sanctions inconvenient arrests. But the ANC would also like to keep the DA and fellow travellers from service delivery portfolios — just in case they succeed!

If the ANC keeps service delivery and security portfolios, what else remains? Social cohesion ministries to a party battling diversity within? This is why the talks are difficult. Smart negotiators think about where their ministers will be regularly visible, where they could turn around departments quickly, and where the big budgets lie. The bickering Ramaphosa wants to avoid is unavoidable.

From a distance, the inauguration was a beaut. But spending hours waiting for the accreditation tags was awful. The GNU also looks great on the outside, but sorting the nuts and bolts will be more than awful.

Ramaphosa was right when he said the people of South Africa want politicians to stop the hunger and landlessness, stop the looting, arrest the thieves, and put the peoples' interests at heart. That it’s hard doesn’t mean you must prevaricate. Get down to it. Fast.