The only way out of the Government of National Unity is for parties to start cannibalising each other or being taken over by stealth. No one is leaving the GNU on a matter of principle.
When the Democratic Alliance recently threatened to torpedo the GNU because the ANC failed to support the party on the Cilliers Brink issue, we knew it was a case of mere brinkmanship rather than actual truth.
The DA ministers appear to be relishing their jobs. Being in power and away from negative and combative party politics seems to have given them a new lease on life.
They have finally seen the difference between tweeting angry messages about every small nuance that the party may not like versus being in the arena and building a government of functional unity to deliver the best services to people.
The ANC, despite its dismal record on virtually every level of governance, is working well with its new GNU ministerial partners.
Whilst the DA could stage a coup of efficiency, the ANC has the potential to cannibalize the DA. Both parties realise their only hope lies in the other.
South Africa is at a critical juncture where we have the opportunity to abandon nationalist and nativist politics and construct a political culture that moves beyond the impasses of fiery but meaningless rhetoric.
The ANC sadly, learnt nothing from its cannibalisation of the National Party.
With the NP becoming a meaningless symbol of white nationalism within the ANC, its many remaining members went to find a political home elsewhere, especially in the DA.
The DA Federal Council will have to tread carefully as they approach the 2026 Municipal Elections. It fired its first salvo of potentially pulling out of the GNU if the ANC did not vote with it on the reinstatement of Brink as Mayor of Tshwane.
Nothing happened. Brink is out and the GNU is still standing. DA leader John Steenhuisen is becoming increasingly comfortable with his new-found freedom in government, away from the fox-terrier politics of the DA.
We are in a season of détente, where the members of the GNU are enjoying the relaxation of tensions that dominated our politics over the last nineteen years.
For these cooperative relations to deepen beyond awe and euphoria, all parties in the GNU must revisit who speaks for them and most of all, who leads them.
Will the DA, ANC and EFF retire some of its more combative members, so that a broader sense-making leadership emerges that recognises that the era of majority politics in highly diverse societies is more of a problem than a desired outcome?
The ANC, who sank deeper into nationalist politics after 1999, must certainly be seeing the writing on the wall. Its failed nationalist tendencies have splintered its constituency into various degrees of extremism, most of it to the right.
Its hope of winning outright majorities is no longer possible. It has also shed its fear of the EFF as a contender for its title.
A mature middle ground is emerging in our political discourse where voters are moving away from the crazy and seeking sense-making.
While I fear that racists and nationalists from the right and left may try to sabotage this new middle ground, new political formations are inevitably being formed. We may not be seeing a cannibalisation this time around. But movements are happening by stealth that will bring about new alignments.
With a citizenry as diverse as ours, it is necessary to co-create a government that can provide good leadership to such a diverse society. It’s not the GNU. It is something else.
In 1994 we designed a flag and a national anthem that tried to merge and represent all of who we are.
It’s time for our political parties to be willing to move beyond their arrogance and prepare for a form of parliamentary government that is more than simple majority rule.
“The seasons, they are a-changing.”
* Lorenzo is a leader and veteran in the social development space who has worked for decades to address SA’s stark inequities.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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