Mthobeli Jiwulane

Realising that it could lose its electoral majority at the next general election in 2024, the ruling African National Congress in South Africa has begun a move to cajole other political parties towards negotiating a new framework for coalition governments post the elections.

Such a framework is likely to result in some government of national unity, similar to the multiparty transitional government the existed at independence in 1994 until 1999. The GNU saw Nelson Mandela appointing former apartheid president FW de Klerk as one of his two deputies along with ANC’s Thabo Mbeki.

The National Dialogue on Coalition Governments, a process led presently by South Africa’s Deputy President Paul Mashatile and envisions a future legislative coalition framework, kicked off in the scenic Cape Town on Friday. It wasn’t Mashatile’s personal issue, but a result of a new mind-set among the ANC old guard that in order to bring about political stability in state governance, the country must go back to the drawing board.

Taking a leaf from its own experience gleaned from the pre-democracy talks, South Africa is retracing its route to let other political parties, not just the ANC to contribute in the smooth running of the government, combining their expertise.

Mandela, Mbeki and Jacob Zuma embraced multipartyism during their tenures as heads of state, by offering some cabinet posts to members of the opposition even beyond the GNU period.

Even the former president of the ANC’s former arch-rival, Inkatha Freedom Party, Mangosuthu Buthelezi and several of his fellow party leaders occupied senior cabinet posts in Mandela-led GNU. At one stage Buthelezi became the acting president in the absence of both Mandela and Mbeki while De Klerk was no longer the second deputy president after his New National Party left the GNU and subsequently disbanded.

Also recently President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed opposition Good party leader, Patricia de Lille as Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure and later moved her to the tourism portfolio in his last cabinet reshuffle. This time ANC, which Ramaphosa leads, might want to expand the circle to include more opposition members in government.

What is behind the new thinking in the ANC?

After close to three decades of its power monopoly, the ANC’s electoral support dropped dramatically due to electorate disgruntlement over endemic public corruption and capture of the state by the private concerns that openly manifested themselves during the nine-years of the Zuma administration. Zuma had been in and out of courts in the last nearly 20 years charged with corruption emanating from graft. The state capture was also extensively investigated by a judicial commission of inquiry presided by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.

The ANC performance at the polls dropped from about 62% under Mandela, 66% under Mbeki, 62% under Zuma and right down to 57% under incumbent President Cyril Ramaphosa. Now there is possibility that the figure would drop even further to below 50% in 2024 as the electorate was getting more disillusioned with ANC’s continuous poor governance and below par service delivery performance.

Reports of the Auditor-Generals regularly show widespread financial mismanagement and lack of accountability and poor book-keeping by state institutions. All arrows point to the fast collapsing the state while the government was forced to implement regulated electricity load-shedding to relieve the pressure on the un-coping national power grid accompanied by economic downturn and worsening rates of unemployment, poverty and inequality exacerbated by the recent Covid-19 pandemic.

The ANC itself is currently debating the issue of the establishment of well-functioning coalition government at all levels with a view to stabilise the country’s political landscape and to realise nation building and reconciliation fashioned by Mandela. While the party was mulling which among the opposition parties it could work with in the post-2024 election era, it mandated Mashatile to embark on establishing a proper coalition framework for the country that would have inputs from all political parties via a national dialogue.

But it’s unlikely to be a smooth process, for the political parties in South Africa were big on ideological conflicts characterised by political grand-standing, power-mongering and fierce competition. They rarely speak with a single voice even on issues of national interest, save for the 1991-1994 multiparty constitutional talks that precipitated the first democratic elections and black majority rule.

At the moment the parties were involved in efforts underpinned by dissing each other publicly. The main opposition Democratic Alliance had initiated its own Moonshot Pact of seven opposition parties to form an anti-ANC buffer that is aimed at ousting the ANC for power.

The third biggest party, the Economic Freedom Fighters led by the militant Marxist-Leninist leader, Julius Malema, its founder. While the EFF and ANC policies overlap the EFF was seen as too left wing and radical by many ANC members and therefore unsuitable as a coalition partner. ANC top guard claims the party’s leadership disrespect the rule of law including undermining the countrie’s constitution. Malema himself continue to hauled before courts to faces various allegations of breaking the law.

There were other smaller parties with lose links to the black former Liberation Movement that had boycotted the DA’s Moonshot Pact citing the DA’s bit brother attitude of bullying them and acting without consulting them in previous opposition talks.

Those centre left parties, usual performing between 1% and 2% in the national elections, were currently in ‘political no-man’s land’ but indications were clear that over time they would be moving towards the ANC camp, where some of them broke away from.

But the ANC, a centre left former liberation movement, was debating the idea of forming a coalition with the DA, a capitalist and free market centre right party. The DA owed its opposition strength and fame to the late anti-apartheid white parliamentarian and rights campaigner, Helen Suzman.

Political scientists in South Africa envisaged the ANC-DA coalition faced numerous hurdles especially on the ANC side, which has to answer to its left allies, South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions for adopting a sell-out position to align with the DA, a party of the white monopoly capital.

Again the ANC and DA differed markedly on foreign policy. On the one hand the former is leaning towards Russia and China and aligns with the Global South and takes a neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine war while, on the other hand, the latter is unashamedly pro-West and Global North and stands against what it called Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine.

An non-ideological consensus would be required for the DA and the ANC to jointly run the country. A coalition, by design, is not about sharing ideologies, but it is a strategy to achieve a particular objective such as governance through consensus decision-making. A good example was the Green Party or the Greens in Germany which is part of the ruling traffic lights coalition comprising the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Free Democratic Party (FDP), and Greens, a combination led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz that emerged from the 2021 elections.

Ideologically and obviously, the anti-global warming Greens favoured clean energy while their partners espoused fossil fuels should remain part of the energy transition. Despite being one of the leading clean energy nations in Europe, Germany had retained its use of oil, gas and coal-powered approach amidst protests by the Greens.

In South Africa ideologies were a big deal that could hamper the establishment of a stable national coalition envisaged in the 2024 elections. Contrary, the ideology played no role in existing municipal coalitions where right-wing, left-wing and middle-ground parties had been able to establish coalition governments albeit unstable partnerships.

The instability had been attributed to the fact that these lower level coalitions had so far been about power-mongering and smaller parties negotiating for positions than the interests of the people or voters.
For instance, at economic hub City of Johannesburg and industrial Ekurhuleni metros, incumbent city mayors were frequently removed by overly regular motions-of-no-confidence initiated by their council opponents who would then take over power only to themselves to be ousted several months later.

The coalition framework process undertaken by Mashatile was aimed at solving this problem and achieve a legislated national consensus on coalition formations. “Our pursuit of national consensus on how to approach coalition governments is a matter of national interest. Properly handled, it has the potential to bring the necessary stability, especially to the local government sphere, despite the intemperance we have witnessed in relation to coalitions.

“This dialogue therefore seeks to promote fidelity to the national interest so that we remain focused on the fulfilment of the constitutional injunction to build a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist, and prosperous society,” Mashatile says.

The state had produced a discussion paper entitled “A Policy Framework Towards Stable Governance”, which according to Mashatile looked at the origin of coalitions in South Africa and the problems that had emerged around them. The challenges included the lack of skills, inadequate revenue, indifference from both administrators and politicians, and the substitution of the public good with self-interest.”
The paper said: “Coalitions are an unmistakable expression of choices that the electorate has made. It is democracy at work.”

A consensus outside of their ideological confines would be required for the DA and the ANC to jointly run the country. The largest party in the land at 57% and the second largest at 20% could breach the 70% majority mark in total when combined.

If they cooperated well, some believe this could a catalyst for political stability and long term racial peace in the country, considering they mainly represented the apartheid-antagonised black and white racial groups respectively in South Africa.

But, and unfortunately so, the unintended consequence of their marriage would be that the smaller political parties, some of which continued to battle for survival, would be moved far back in the queue to the levers of power, which the ANC and the DA could monopolise due to their big numbers, if they agreed to work together.