sOUTH AFRICA's government of national unity: will it work?

I will never forget witnessing the determination and joy in the queues waiting outside South African polling stations on 29 May 1994.  I had accompanied former President Kaunda of Zambia to Kwazulu-Natal only days before as an election observer.  We feared serious violence between the Zulu nationalist party of Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, Inkatha, and Mandela’s ANC.  Buthelezi, originally tasked to build up the ANC in the Zulu heartland, pulled back at the last minute.
 
In the triumphant election that ended apartheid the ANC won nationally with 62% of the vote.  In this year’s elections, after thirty years’ unbroken rule, the ANC took only 40 per cent, losing their majority in Parliament.  It was a humiliation, inflicted by a disappointed, angry electorate, but also a vindication of South Africa’s democracy. This was a clear verdict on the ANC’s performance in government over the last 15 years, during which corruption has become endemic.
 
Meeting on June 7 to discuss the way forward, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC decided neither to seek a coalition partner or partners to form a majority government, nor to risk a minority government with a “confidence and supply” arrangement, but instead to propose a Government of National Unity (GNU).

In a statesmanlike speech, President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke of the – legislated – 1994 transitional coalition which followed the ANC victory, bringing together under Mandela’s direction future President Thabo Mbeki and former President F.W. De Klerk, to govern until an interim Constitution requiring the allegiance of all political parties was finalised in 1996. The context, easing the transition from apartheid, was radically different from that of today.  Though once again the province of KwaZulu-Natal — now led by Jacob Zuma, the corrupt former President, and his new Spear of the Nation Party (uMkhonto weSizwe or MKP), cleverly appropriating the name of the ANC’s former armed wing — is a threat to stability and to any unity government.
 
Ramaphosa described the unity proposal as in the best interests of the people of South Africa, in accordance with the vision of the preamble to the Constitution: to realise the full potential of all citizens and bring material benefits to an unequal and unjust society.  It might indeed be best for South Africa, but a GNU is also in the ANC’s interests.
 
All the potential coalition partnerships were highly problematic.  The Democratic Alliance (DA), led by Durban-born John Steenhuisen, which took 21% of the vote, is viewed by many as a right-wing party promoting white interests.   Then there was Zuma’s MKP, with 14.5% of the vote, promising both to expropriate white-owned land without compensation and to change the Constitution. Thirdly, there was the former ANC youth leader Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), with 9.5%, calling for nationalisation of mines and land expropriation. Both Zuma and Malema are stridently populist, potentially violent, and determined to get rid of Ramaphosa.  Any of these partners would have exacerbated divisions within the ANC.  Only a Government of National Unity looked feasible.
 
At 82, Zuma has a score to settle with Ramaphosa.  He connects with many of the poor and has ten years’ prison on Robben Island with Mandela to his credit. In the 1980s, Zuma was the ruthless head of ANC Intelligence.  He took the presidency in a non-violent internal coup against President Thabo Mbeki in 2009.  As President, he accumulated power and money through a form of systemic corruption known as “state capture”. 
 
Ramaphosa led internal opposition to Zuma, forcing him to resign after a vote of no confidence in February 2018, allowing criminal charges for corruption and contempt of court to go ahead.  But Zuma has only served three months in jail.  His formation of the MKP in December 2023 heralded a political comeback with overwhelming support from his Zulu political base in Kwazulu-Natal.  But just before the 26 May elections, he was banned from standing for Parliament. 
 
I have seen Zuma up-close.  It was in Zimbabwe in the mid-1980s, when, in the garden of the Rev. Michael Lapsley – who later lost both hands and an eye in a South African letter-bomb, Zuma suddenly emerged from behind a bush.  There was something brutal and sinister about him.  Frankly, I felt frightened by him — as well Ramaphosa might be.  Zuma is a clear and present danger for stability and democracy in South Africa.
 
The ANC has until 18 June to pull together a government.  Some 53 political parties contested the 2024 elections; only 6 of them won more than 300,000 votes.   Of the three big Parties, only the DA has joined alongside Inkatha and the Patriotic Alliance.  The MKP are refusing to join unless Ramaphosa steps down; the EFF is currently saying “we will not share power with the enemy”, though a few months back Malema did say he was open to a coalition with the ANC; and the DA wants to know more about how a Government of National Unity would function.  A political minefield.
 
But the wider question is: could a Government of National Unity tackle South Africa’s problems? These include chronic corruption; over 45% youth unemployment; wretched health and educational provision for the poor; serious crime and insecurity. And after 30 years of the ANC, South Africa is top of the world league for inequality.
 
Systemic corruption has crippled the South African economy. André de Ruyter, the honest and competent CEO of the country’s energy provider, ESCOM, was forced out for trying to eliminate the corruption that was causing persistent and prolonged power cuts.  After having cyanide slipped into his morning coffee, De Ruyter’s advice to any incoming CEO was not to have a personalised coffee cup. 
 
Is Ramaphosa up to it?  He is undoubtedly tough and talented — but “squeaky clean” are not the first words that come to mind.  In 2020 a mysterious $4 million dollars were stolen from his Phala-Phala farmhouse, a surprising sum to be stuffed inside the sofa. Head of the Student Christian Movement in his Venda High School, frequently detained while a law student, respected leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, brilliant negotiator, successful entrepreneur, skilled navigator of the dangerous shoals within the ANC, Ramaphosa’s biography suggests he has the capacity. But he needs the support of determined, competent and honest ministers to bring about change.
 
Today the 400 members of the National Assembly will be sworn in, pledging to uphold the Constitution. As the ANC now knows, the people of South Africa will punish severely at the ballot-box failure to improve their lives, to provide jobs, and clean the Augean stables.   A culture of accountability must be created, and prosecutions made. In a promising appointment, Rev. Frank Chikane, a courageous opponent of the apartheid regime, former General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches and chef de cabinet for President Mbeki, is now the head of the Integrity Commission to achieve this end.   But support from the ANC parliamentary party will be essential.
 
Despite multiple obstacles ahead, Ramaphosa with his considerable skills may be able to steer a GNU in the direction of integrity.  South Africa’s future government should remember the warning of Amilcar Cabral, poet and pan-Africanist: “Always bear in mind that people are not fighting for ideas.... They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children”.  As Trevor Manuel, the – honest and successful — ANC Minister of Finance, 1996-2009, pointedly asked on Radio South Africa’s Midday Report: “Who will hold the feet of the GNU to the fire?”

​See TheArticle 14/06/2024