The junior representative of big business in parliament, ActionSA, has upstaged and outsmarted the real spokesperson of the free market in the government, the DA.
As the latter scrambles to regain fast-eroding ground, while mulling life on the opposition benches once again, ActionSA is sitting pretty with smug smiles from its two ex-DA leaders, Herman Mashaba and Athol Trollip.
And now we have the spectacle of a party in government going to court to stop the government it is a part of from passing a budget its cabinet members need to function. A clearer way of putting yourself outside of government would be difficult to imagine.
One thing, though, has to be said about the DA and its unrelenting fight for its constituency — its real constituency, that is. Not the so-called poor who would be hit hard by a VAT increase. No, the white ooms and tannies who don’t want their klein baasies going to school with black kids because of the Bela Act.
Or the followers who oppose national health insurance, lest it brings hordes of blacks into their private hospitals. They also want to stop the tame Expropriation Act that could see some of them moving from land forcibly taken without compensation from black owners.
That is why, in the “interests of the poor” that would be hard hit by VAT, the DA was prepared to vote yes to a VAT increase provided those three issues were effectively reversed.
Politics is a game of numbers and calculated moves. Numbers are important but it is also important to know how you play your numbers, or cards as Donald Trump calls them. For example, when Jacob Zuma’s MK Party won the most seats in KwaZulu-Natal last May, it failed to read the room and now finds itself on the opposition benches with its many representatives presided over by a motley group of parties that calculated correctly.
Julius Malema’s EFF had the possibility of going into government last year, but it too overplayed its hand, publicly demanding a deputy presidency and the position of finance minister. The ANC told them where to get off.
ActionSA and the group that voted for the budget will struggle to find alternatives to VAT, and the Treasury will have to agree to it. They must hope there is a way to find the money by May 1, because by that time some of them might well be ministers with departments showing that they are delivering to the masses
The DA pushed too hard for its three demands, and found itself outfoxed when ActionSA came with a compromise at the finance committees in parliament. The proposal effectively left the VAT increase intact, giving the ANC time to find revenue alternatives before May 1 to offset the need for VAT.
It’s called kicking the can down the road. President Nelson Mandela was an expert at this. When the extreme right-wingers of Gen Constand Viljoen agitated for a volkstaat, he gave them money and a mandate to set up an inquiry on the matter. With whites now realising that the new order was actually the old order under new management, Viljoen’s faction was neutralised.
ActionSA and the group that voted for the budget will struggle to find alternatives to VAT, and the Treasury will have to agree to it. They must hope there is a way to find the money by May 1, because by that time some of them might well be ministers with departments showing that they are delivering to the masses.
What of the DA? For the section of the party that wanted to be part of the GNU, this is a calamity. Being a politician is a career and being a minister not only comes with perks but also gives one the possibility to effect development. They threw their lot into making a difference. But they were doing so while Helen Zille exhorted them to quit the GNU. She lost the fight to keep the DA out but never gave up. At every turn she was waiting for them to walk out.
Has she gotten her prize with this budget fiasco? If the case in court is now not just about opposing a VAT increase but a constitutional issue about whether the minister of finance should have the powers he presently has to implement VAT, this is no longer about the 0.5 percentage point. It is instead about the need to amend the law, which is long-term. And as the case meanders through the courts and the white and green papers in parliament if they win, they could be back on the opposition benches, and John Deere may just be another John again.
• Tsedu is a former editor of the Sunday Times and a former chair of Sanef
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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