In the absence of political compromise being used as a tool to balance competing interests and promote stability, peace and governance in SA, we are faced with warfare around the cabinet table that results in lawfare in the courts — this in a government of national unity (GNU) that was meant to resolve issues and not dissolve when the going gets tough.
Unlike the previous GNU, the current one was born out of electoral necessity and a fragmented electorate. It’s an untenable situation and we may have to revert, in the absence of a joint modus operandi to chart a way out of the problems that beset SA, to the old politics of opposition sniping at the increasingly thin ankles of government — involving challenges from the opposition benches, motions of no confidence and snap elections to find a way out of the mess.
Of course the danger of what the DA calls a “doomsday coalition” looms, but perhaps testing it remains the only way to solve the current impasse. Markets will quake and the upper echelons who inhabit First World bubbles essentially surrounded by a sea of Third World have-nots, will batten down the hatches, but democracy will take its course — time, as they say, is longer than rope.
You cannot simply glue together a paper coalition that cuts across class lines. There needs to be a delineation, and as a democracy, we will need to weather this and hold governments to book — in parliament, in committee, and in the courts of legal and public opinion.
It is patently untenable to chant an opposing mantra while hanging on to appearances in the GNU — as the DA does in the wake of its legal challenge to the Employment Equity Act.
On the one hand, you have the ANC punting poor policy design that relies on overly blunt instruments, lacking sector nuance with implementation risks in a context where enforcement is often politicised or misused, and the use of broad, one-size-fits-all quotas that run the risk of being legally and practically unworkable. This, against an all-too-familiar background where the perils of legislation that entrenches a narrow group and fails to uplift the majority are painfully evident. The lesson here must be that you don’t fix structural exclusion with symbolic inclusion.
On the other side of the coin, you have the DA positioning itself as pro-growth and pro-investment, but the hard questions are being ignored. What kind of jobs will be created? Who owns? Who leads? Who decides? There seems to be little understanding here that growth alone won’t deliver justice and that without structural change, inequality will be widened. Surely redress ought not be a race to the bottom, but instead needs to be a call to restructure the top?
Unfortunately, there is scant intelligent application or debate within the GNU about these issues, particularly as local elections loom next year and grandstanding becomes the order of the day — aimed at setting the scene for the national elections in 2029. What we now have are voter-facing tactics instead of an in-house move from compliance-based transformation to values-based inclusion where sector specific equity strategies are examined; where real skills transfer — not paper targets — are sought and innovative issues around worker ownership, co-ops and inclusive enterprise are explored. True transformation is not about the colour at the table; it’s about who sets the menu.
We don’t need to choose between equity and investment; we need to redefine both and move from a debate about box-ticking to a conversation about power-sharing, and if we can’t, then best part and draw the battle lines now.
• Cachalia is a former DA MP and public enterprises spokesperson.
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