The government of national unity (GNU) has just five years to prove its worth, says DA leader John Steenhuisen, and as part of government his party will do everything it can to ensure the “builders” come out on top.
The “breakers” — former president Jacob Zuma’s MK party and the EFF — are coalescing, Steenhuisen says, making the period after the May polls a dangerous time. But this is not where the danger ends for the DA. It also faces the risk of being “swallowed up” by the ANC, as other parties have been that were in coalition with it after 1994.
It is taking this risk seriously, receiving advice from parties in the UK that were quashed or rose from similar coalitions. Making the shift from the opposition to the inner sanctum of government departments is tough. The DA has had to reconfigure the way it works, and its ministers are receiving advice at a party level from former strategist Ryan Coetzee.
Steenhuisen told Business Day in an interview this week that the DA had formed a “cabinet office” where the party directs communications on its achievements, which are then distributed more widely.
“We have a once-a-week caucus meeting. Each of the DA cabinet ministers will be required to sign a performance agreement ... So we monitor it.
“Of course, the president is head of cabinet and we respect that. But as a party in government we have been having strategic sessions,” Steenhuisen says, emphasising that continued communication with the DA’s constituency is crucial.
“That’s why the EFF and MK are such a gift for us, because they’re opposite us in parliament; they are the alternative. And it’s chaos and it’s corrupt and it’s a mess. Do you want that? That’s the story we need to keep telling SA — why we are in there and why we are doing this.”
Creating jobs
Steenhuisen describes the coalescing of MK and the EFF, after the defection of Floyd Shivambu from the latter to the former, as a “huge danger ... The GNU’s got five years. And it had better produce. People have said ... the DA’s ministers are ... being too keen and running like rabbits out of the starting blocks to get things done. But it’s because we realise we’ve only got five years.
“Five years isn’t a long time. If we don’t create more jobs, if we don’t grow the economy, if we don’t have a more inclusive society, if we don’t start to get good governance and fight corruption, we’re going to leave an open highway for the radicals to get in.”
This appears to be precisely the entry Zuma is hoping for. At a media briefing on Thursday his party announced its top leadership structure and declared its intent to “unite progressive forces” and “break the oppression in SA” by dismantling the GNU.
Steenhuisen describes MK-EFF as being far from principled. “I think it’s mutually reinforcing networks of cronies who are realising that if they don’t do something they’re going to lose access to the trough for a long, long time ... [MK is] going to end up a lot like COPE did.”
Precarious situation
Perhaps Zuma secretly fears the same thing; his party will not be holding an elective conference to democratically elect leaders. Rather, they have been hand-picked by the former president. The party will hold elections only once it has established structures in place, meaning it will be controlled by Zuma’s whims and fancies for the foreseeable future.
It was Steenhuisen who first dropped the notion of a “doomsday pact” last year during his acceptance speech after his re-election as DA leader. Back then, he committed to do everything to prevent a tie-up between the ANC and the EFF. He had no idea that the situation would worsen and become all the more precarious for SA with Zuma’s late entry into the electoral fray.
MK, a despotic gathering of current and former crooks, blazed onto the Electoral Commission’s scoreboard with a huge 2.3-million votes, taking up the post of official opposition in parliament and the largest party by far in KwaZulu-Natal. Looking back, Steenhuisen says his “doomsday” scenario got immensely more complicated, and the spectre of an ANC, MK and EFF tie-up would have meant the “beginning of the end” for SA.
He has no regrets about his party’s partnership with the ANC, despite a difficult negotiation process and having himself underestimated the enormity of the task ahead when in government. It is simply a matter of five years before it becomes clear who will win this battle: the builders or the breakers?
• Marrian is Business Day editor-at-large.
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