The government of national unity (GNU) – or rather a grand coalition of sorts – is admittedly not perfect. That much we know.
But we are stuck with this Janus-faced creature for now, and in essence, it is arguably the most palatable outcome given the election results. In other words, it could have been a lot worse if the alternatives are scrutinized and weighed.
So, going forward and leaving the opposition question aside for a moment, what are some of the benefits and drawbacks of this arrangement regarding its functioning and policy-making dynamics?
In my view, the main benefit is that its makeup constrains the most extremist impulses of the various parties. The PAC’s Mzwanele Nyhontso, who is now the minister of land reform & rural development, recently told Sunday Times that he would take all white land and redistribute it to blacks, if he had his way. “If the PAC had won the elections, I would be saying ‘the land is going to be restored to its rightful owners’,” he said.
But he didn’t win the elections. Not even close. His party only received 0.23% of the votes, which is barely enough for one MP.
Why they were rewarded with a controversial cabinet position is beyond me (perhaps a sop to the Left after the bigger players got snubbed), but Nyhontso also said he won’t waste his five-year tenure to amend Section 25 of the Constitution and would reform land ownership within the confines of the law.
If he really did have his way, his actions could be calamitous for the country. Agriculture will collapse, food prices will skyrocket, and the economy will suffer untold harm.
The two main players in the GNU – the faction in the ANC aligned to President Cyril Ramaphosa, and the DA – will variously tame the extremist proclivities of the bit players, while they seem to increasingly agree on positive steps such as private sector involvement in public sector activities.
The value in policymaking in South Africa is often more about eschewing fringe policies as they are about crafting optimal ones.
The GNU will in all likelihood veer towards the centre on most issues and the competition that a multiparty government is likely to unleash within the GNU, will hopefully drive innovation, efficiencies and even some veritable cooperation. Three cheers for proportional representation!
One of the chief disadvantages is that it doesn’t allow for drastic changes that will, for instance, shrink the size of government or get rid of errant personnel.
This would probably prejudice the DA the most, seeing as they are the party with the biggest desire for changing the way government operates and who faces the most hostility from the bureaucracy.
Hence, this constraint will see them making incremental and seemingly innocuous changes that do not offend the ANC (and everybody else) too much.
These changes will have the cumulative effect of slowly redesigning their departments without upsetting the apple cart. It will also reassure the bureaucracy that the sky won’t fall if their party isn’t in charge of a given department.
Moreover, the DA is likely to focus hard on rooting out flagrant corruption and blatant misconduct that cannot be justified by other parties, especially the ANC. And on upholding the (veritably malleable) mandate that the Constitution – which is the purported lodestar of this arrangement – permits them.
This will shield them from criticism that they undermine both the highest law of the land and the vaunted GNU statement of intent. It will also prevent Ramaphosa from expunging them in a likely cabinet reshuffle at some stage.
By then they would also have gleaned enough information on what is wrong in the machinery of their respective departments to play an opposition role once more.
Policymaking in the GNU will probably reflect Ramaphosa and the ANC’s penchant for stalling, talking and settling on something that is more or less similar to the status quo. I guess that amounts to “sufficient consensus”, as required by the statement of intent.
It will often be unclear what the stance or official policy pertaining to a certain question entail, and how much consultation needs to take place before decisions big and small may be made by ministers?
Without clear markers in the statement of intent, policymaking could foreseeably be a painful and cumbersome process. Certain issues such as transformation will be considered inviolable, albeit in a more nuanced form.
Lest we forget that they are still rivals, this is one of the big-ticket policy items that is likely to cause friction between the Ramaphosa faction and the DA at some stage.
Gradualism and paralysis will still be hallmarks of this administration, but so too the forestalling of extremism and entirely noxious policies. Neither entirely good nor bad. Much like South Africa and its people.
Dr Eugene Brink is a business consultant, entrepreneur and analyst based in the Cape Winelands.
