Budget 2025 – Is it the end of the road for the GNU?

The 2025/2026 fiscal framework of the National Budget that was postponed in February, delivered in March and looked like it wouldn’t see the light of day this April limped it’s way through Parliament with a slim 12 (194 to 182) votes this Wednesday. These the ANC scrounged together from the IFP, PA, BOSA, UDM, Rise Mzansi, Al-Jama-ah, PAC and Good Party. The Democratic Alliance (DA), second biggest partner in the GNU had doubled down, vowing it would not to support the budget if it failed to meet the party’s main bones of contention, namely:

1) ‘The procedure of the Finance Committee on 1 April 2025, to consider and approve the Fiscal Framework.’

2) ‘The constitutionality of certain revenue collection and expenditure measures becoming binding through a speech by the Finance Minister without Parliament having to consider, oversee or approve them.’

When the DA made its reservations known, some were already questioning whether it wasn’t perhaps overplaying its hand, thus jeopardizing an already fragile GNU. Moreover, for a liberal party with an affinity to markets, ratings agencies and investor confidence, would the delay not negatively affect the country’s image with these economic elements? In a statement, the aforementioned (numbered above) were the issues cited by the party but behind closed doors, said Gwede Mantashe moments after the National Assembly sitting that the DA had pre-2 April, been ‘bombarding’ the ANC with everything except the Budget. According to the ANC Chairperson, the issues grating the DA foremost are really the Land Expropriation and BELA Acts. He then went on to warn that ‘if the DA walks away from the budget, it is destabilising the country….they are walking out of the GNU themselves’ before going on to state that the ANC were now, nine months into the union, ‘psychologically prepared’ for such a walkout.

In the aftermath, suspicions loomed ever large around the DA’s supposed solidarity with the poor in its rejection of the initial proposed 2% VAT hike when on a no-holds-barred Facebook live video, PA leader Gayton Mckenzie sought to punch holes into such claims and bring to the light the party’s supposed hypocrisies. When the Budget was first presented to parties, said Mckenzie, the first people to outright reject it were the ANC’s very own Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa and his colleague in the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mmamoloko Kubayi. The DA, he went on, actually agreed to the increase on condition that the ANC scrapped the National Health Insurance (NHI), a legislation McKenzie considers pro-poor, before he went to list a host of reasons why the DA is a craven white party that treats its darker citizens in the Western Cape abhorently.

The back and forth between the top brass of various parties within and out of the GNU had been persisting since 19 February, the day on which the budget was first scheduled to be tabled. But far more than the budget itself, it was the DA’s future in government that captured the general narrative, something that, leading up to yesterday, the party’s utterances had left many wondering whether the party still had the requisite tolerance levels to suffer its partners in government.

On the steps of parliament on Tuesday, a day before the budget was passed, DA spokesperson Karabo Khakhau came out to dare the ANC to try to pass the budget vote without her party. ‘The DA’ she threatened, ‘will not sit and work with a budget that we do not believe serves the best interests of South Africans. If push comes to shove and we find ourselves in a position where the GNU is unworkable altogether, where there is no sobriety as far as the direction we are to take, then if we must, we will leave.’

Such threats would not be taken lying down in a GNU environment where there’s a perpetual jostle for clout, self assertion, and an attempt (on the part of the DA) not to seem like they have gone soft due to proximity to power and an ANC trying to assure the ‘class cluster,’ particularly the unionmen and communists, that the revolution will not be compromised by the power sharing. DA Federal Chairperson Helen Zille has been trying to convince anyone who will listen that the blue light convoys have not done anything to her party’s commitment to selflessly serving the country whilst Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya came out to ask, ‘How do they [the DA] remain part of a government whose Budget they opposed? How can DA Ministers run programmes on a Budget they opposed?’

By Thursday, the DA were standing in front of the Western Cape High Court seeking ‘to get the process on the 1st of April that transpired in the parliamentary portfolio committee on finance declared null and void because they were unprocedural therefore to set aside any decision they took.’ Furthermore, their court action hopes ‘to interdict a vat increase on the 1st of May’ as well as getting ‘Section 7.4 of the VAT Act declared unconstitutional because it gives the Minister [of Finance] the power to enforce a VAT increase without taking it through parliament and without the need to have the fiscal framework and other legislation required passed in parliament.’

Earlier this week, TimesLive reported that ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula had cautioned parties ‘engaging in the contentious budget negotiation process with aims of political point-scoring, warning it may lead to a reconfigured GNU.’ Although he said there would be no culling of parties who didn’t support the budget, he did say there would be implications – whatever that means.

A leaked audio recording of President Ramaphosa at a closed ANC caucus meeting further laid bare the lingering tensions. ‘We are the ones, whether you like it or not,’ said the president, ‘who are leading this GNU and we therefore have a responsibility to demonstrate that leadership.’ In the wake of all the innuendo, it was the smaller parties whose voices were more measured with no apparent big egos to throw around. Rise Mzansi’s Songezo Zibi only expressed his joy that the days of the ruling party sleepwalking their way through budget processes were over. BOSA’s Mmusi Maimane emphasised the ‘maturity of saying how do we put South Africans first… A South Africa without a budget is sliding towards a banana Republic,’ he noted.

ActionSA’s Athol Trolip advocated for the empowerment of Sars who had exceeded their revenue collection by some R8.8bn in the 2024/25 tax year. For the IFP’s Velenkosi Hlabisa, whose party is in a government of provincial unity in KwaZulu-Natal, the DA’s conduct may be a tad more unsettling. During the infancy stage of the GNU, where many were adamant that the DA got the short end of the stick in as far as numbers in Cabinet as well as influencial ministerial positions went, supporters accused the party of letting the ANC walk all over them. Back then they had to act quick because the ANC was talking with everybody including the EFF and MKP. An ANC/EFF/MKP coalition had to be stopped even if that meant bending over backwards, conceding a few seats and looking away when disagreeable decisions were taken.

But now government has gone on to pass controversial bills like the BELA Act with the DA seemingly unable to do anything despite its second positioning in the GNU. Consequently, a bulk of its followers are unimpressed. The party seems to have lost the fighting spirit it was once famous for as leader of the opposition. Sooner or later it had to flash its teeth, make its presence felt. What bigger ocassion to do so than to block the budget? Frustrate the ANC and have investors shaking in their boots. Was that the reason for its conduct, to demonstrate to the ANC that it needed the DA just as much the DA needed them? Are DA’s grievances legitimate or is it all just politicking 101 – trying to twist the other guy’s arm into making concession he would not otherwise give you?

Whatever the motives, one thing seems abundantly clear – whatever cloud of suspicion the DA has walked under, has only grown bigger and darker. At a time when people like Trump have the country in their crosshairs, a united front would at least offer the veneer of a country that still has its house in order. It would send a strong message to those who would wish to see the GNU collapse that despite the differences and uncertainty, America is too far and they have neither pap nor biltong. If for nothing else, we are prepared to talk and work together just so that we can ensure those simple delicacies to all South Africans.