In politics as in life, sometimes you have to accept that a relationship is irretrievably broken and move on. That point may now have been reached with the government of national unity — at least in terms of its current composition, with significant, highly negative consequences for South Africa’s democracy and economy.
After a long and torrid week in politics, the ANC and the DA have fallen out badly. The question is whether the relationship is truly broken or can be retrieved, and if so, how?
Continental Europeans describe it as a grand coalition when the two biggest parties share power after an election in which the electorate has not given either a majority. The agreement reached between the ANC and the DA, encompassing 62% of the votes cast in the May 2024 watershed election in which the ANC lost its majority for the first time in the democratic era, represented a potentially very stable base on which to build a coalition government.
The legitimacy of this arrangement was enhanced further with the addition of the IFP as a third partner — bringing the aggregate total for the three parties to almost two thirds.
This could, and should, have been enough. But to get the deal over the line internally, President Cyril Ramaphosa decided he had to find a way to dilute the potential power of, and dependency on, the DA. Creating a bigger government of national unity (GNU) was the tactical sleight of hand; it made the package, including the DA, far more politically acceptable to a wider group of factions within the ANC.
In addition, the constitution required a deal to be reached swiftly — within 14 days of the election. Under great pressure, political leaders failed to negotiate a sufficiently detailed agreement. The statement of intent that was hastily signed on the day the National Assembly convened to elect the new president has proved to be singularly unfit for purpose.
These two elements — the superfluity in the composition of the GNU and the shoddiness of the coalition agreement are the structural weaknesses in the coalition.
While the 2025 budget, and the disputes over it, are no doubt important, not least for the fiscal stability of the country, the recent squabbles are the effect, not the cause, of the breakdown in trust. This fight has been brewing for several months. On the one hand, the DA feels excluded from important decision-making within the government, especially in relation to economic policymaking. On the other, the ANC has clearly struggled to fully digest its loss of majority power and often continues to conduct itself as if its majority remains intact.
At the time of writing, the grand coalition part of the GNU was hanging by a thread. The question of whether the DA would stay or go appeared to be when, not if.
To use the word of one influential CEO such an outcome would be “unacceptable”. That view reflects the fact that whether objectively reasonable or not, the positive attitude to the formation of the GNU last year by the leadership of big business in South Africa, as well as the investor world, hinged almost entirely on the participation of the DA.
This market view is partly subjective sentiment. But it is also rational: what persuaded the moderate middle and the social democrat parts of the ANC to advocate for inclusion of the DA in the future government was that it represents a far better option — politically and economically — than the alternative, the EFF and/or MKP, mainly because of the shared commitment to constitutionalism and the rule of law.
During those fetid two weeks of negotiation last June, thoughtful politicians on both sides came to realise that the right question to ask themselves was not “Do you like X?' but “which party will be the more reliable partner in government?”
This should not be beyond recovery. Acknowledge the mistakes; commit to negotiating a proper, comprehensive coalition agreement; appoint an experienced mediator; put the personal petty enmity to the side; and thereby rise to the occasion.
Even though trust is now in short supply, political leaders on both sides need to return to this question. They need to carefully consider their next steps and where their decisions could take them and the country. The stakes now are just as high as they were after the election. An already weak economy cannot afford any missteps. And those leaders who take precipitative action will be judged harshly by history.
So leaders of both the ANC and the DA need to put aside their gripes. The ANC needs to acknowledge that it has not always negotiated in good faith; that it has excluded the DA from certain policymaking; that the National Treasury has been far too dominant and exclusionary in not just setting the fiscal framework but in setting macroeconomic policy; and that its secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, is an erratic counterpart to have to deal with.
For its part, the DA needs to reverse out of the cul de sac that its leader, John Steenhuisen, drove it into when he rejected the new budget compromise out of hand and failed to recognise that he could have claimed a win for his party; and, he needs to listen less to obsessively anti-ANC advice and more to the people who run businesses in the real economy and urgently need more investment.
The rest of the world is in a turbulent mess; South Africa needs as stable and credible a government as possible — not one that survives, vote by vote, on a precarious arithmetic of smaller, mainly opportunistic, parties.
This should not be beyond recovery. Acknowledge the mistakes; commit to negotiating a proper, comprehensive coalition agreement; appoint an experienced mediator; put the personal petty enmity to the side; and thereby rise to the occasion.
Anything else will be a grave failure of political leadership.
• Calland is adjunct visiting professor at the Wits School of Governance and director of Africa Programme of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
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