From day the election results beamed across the large screens, we saw it coming. No amount of feigned smiles or handshakes could spare the GNU from the fate of getting off to a rocky start. That’s if – what with all the rats and mice eyeing the cheese – the wheels could hold to begin with. And with the ANC squirming in the mousetrap following its dire election showing, the official opposition DA – specifically Helen Zille – could be counted on to up the ante, driving a hard, if not totally absurd, bargain at the first opportunity.
As her notorious tweeting will attest, she has never been the sort to let an opportunity go to waste. With enough room, she would rush to make their presence felt, proving to their constituency (some of whom are hardly chuffed at the unholy dalliance with the ‘corrupt’ ANC) that they will be no pushover to the ‘commies’. Not for nothing that the federal chairperson has earned the moniker of Godzille – and that it’s been seemingly left to her, not party leader John Steenhuisen, to act as the de facto head negotiator towards a settlement.
In a widely-circulated letter, she has demanded that the DA occupy the deputy presidency or at least a ministry “in the Presidency with significant policy and budgetary oversight roles, and a deputy minister of finance” according to a report on Daily Maverick. Furthermore, she seeks, “representation across all Cabinet clusters, with preferred portfolios in economic, social, governance, justice, and international sectors specified.” She would also like the party to have “influence over the selection of directors general (DGs) in their departments” amongst several significant demands.
On the face of it, it’s the requested positions that have gotten tongues wagging but below the surface, far graver realities simmer. After such an electoral grubbing, the ANC has been the biggest loser, not just in numbers but in its ideological standing. Or at least in how that ideology is interpreted by those within and out of its ranks. It doesn’t look good for its public image when the comrades are jumping at the ‘madam’s’ whim. Or that they’re sent into panic mode by the demands she’s putting before them.
You see chief in the ANC’s list of priorities is to save face. To disprove all those who would wish to portray ‘the ANC of Ramaphosa’ as the one that sold out the second time around (the first being at CODESA), effectively delivering the fatal blow that would bury the party for good. Julius Malema’s pronouncements that he knows the president was a ‘collaborator’ and similar tones emanating from the far-left aim to cast Ramaphosa as a scaly double-crosser who’s answerable to Stellenbosch. John Hlophe, the embattled former Western Cape Judge President has suddenly resurfaced, appointed as the MKP’s chiep whip in the National Assembly, as well as to tell us that in the GNU, ‘white people [have] the ANC by the balls.’ A pointed, if not nefarious, narrative is emerging here.
The Freedom Front Plus’s request for the recognition of Orania as an independent state has not helped matters. The supposed vast uranium deposits in the whites-only colony have the doomsayers predicting nuclear warfare, an Israel-Palestine / China-Taiwan situation in the long-term where the ‘settlers’ will rise up and mercilessly dominate the indigenous and African peoples once more. With Hlophe and the likes of Nathi Nhleko’s appointments, Des van Rooyen being sworn in as an MP one can expect the ghosts of state capture’s past to attempt to inflict vengeance on Ramaphosa. Already they have reinvented themselves as the ‘progressive caucus’ that will rally ‘black’ parties to take on the ‘white minority government.’ In this framing Ramaphosa becomes the acquiescent ‘house n****r’ who will be at the beck and call of his white masters. As seemingly outmoded as such tactics may seem, they are potent enough to invite derision for the victims. When serving in the DA Youth, the leader Makashule Gana struggled to shake off Malema’s insult that he was nothing but a ‘garden boy’ to the ‘Madam’ Zille.
Andile Mngxitama, he of Black First Land First is also doing duty as an MKP MP in what one Daily Maverick heading referred to as a ‘Rogues’ gallery.’ Out on bail following charges of corruption, Zizi Kodwa, left soon after also being sworn in as an ANC MP. One should not be surprised if and when we find the likes of Ace Magashule making a comeback in the not so distant future.
In light of such developments, the numbers, you see, become a petty concern. The bigger issue are the racial tropes, suspicions and tainted elements that clearly never went away and continue to shape our current political reality. Pondering on this matter, City Press editor-in-chief, Mondli Makhanya writes, “To believe that the DA will get into government and bulldoze its way back to apartheid is absurdly fanciful and condescending.” But Makhanya is also unsure of the alternative. “Equally fanciful,” he continues, “is believing that if the ANC had gone with the “leftist” MKP and the EFF, the interests of the black poor would have been guaranteed.”
In the main, the writers understand that the GNU may be our last hope. Sadly, they are not sitting at the negotiating table nor do their tummies depend on what is decided there. That is in the hands of these aforementioned names and those who are innocuously playing along but have kept their true intentions well-guarded. With some 71 parliamentary seats shed by the governing party, for many MPs the GNU is a secondary concern to what tomorrow may bring.
Survival instinct will no doubt have them towing the line that will best serve their economic interests. The inter and intra-party mayhem will create the sort of environment for punters to cross the floor, sabotage the GNU efforts or just go along with it only for one last dab in the cookie jar. With the support crisis that the party finds itself in no doubt there will be an escalation in looting across all three spheres of government. Now, more than ever, the party that will show itself to be hardest on corruption will likely be the one to firmly hold the reigns as early as 2034.
If there’s one thing these elections have demonstrated is that gone is the generation of unquestioning loyalty, or those who will turn a blind eye to corruption and smile in the face of an ostentatious ANC elite. In demoting the ANC from invincibility, effectively they have given other parties a mandate: now, show us what you can do.
Although the politics in the echelons of power are race-centred, the polling has shown that the everyday Jabu and Pieter are only mostly preoccupied with jobs, putting bread on the table and the kids through school. I doubt they care much whether Andile Mngxitama once asked money from the Guptas, or that Helen Zille is seemingly quite a fan of colonialism or that Dr Hlophe is only one of two judges ever find himself in hot water in a post-democratic SA. If either one of them is capable of firing up the nation’s economic engine, get the lights permanently back of and ensure safer streets, South Africans are a forgiven lot. They might be willing to let things slide. Still, though, this is a chance for real leadership to show itself. In Madiba’s words: “we don’t care if the cat is black or white, as long as it can catch mice”.