TERENCE CORRIGAN: Jury is out on whether coalitions can be made to work - Business Day

Terence Corrigan

It would indeed be unfortunate, as columnist Anthony Butler contends, if the government of national unity (GNU) turns out to be a momentary expedient (“GNU parties should beware myopic short-term pact”, July 12).

The precipitous decline of the ANC’s fortunes and the need for cross-party co-operation represent a moment to reorient SA’s politics — enormous opportunities as well as profound peril present themselves. 

Prospects for success depend on understanding what has brought us to this point, and accepting what is feasible in view of the country’s realities. 

For Butler, the coalition could help the constituent parties — chiefly the ANC and DA — to confront their deficiencies and learn from one another. Perhaps, though that is a long-term project and a doubtful prospect. The relationship between the DA and ANC has been deeply hostile and mutually suspicious. The coalition was hardly something either party wanted. Only the realities of the electoral outcome placed this arrangement on the table. 

The opportunities are not in the operations of parties, but rather elsewhere, in the broader mode of politics. Both the DA and the ANC — and, for that matter, the other constituent groups — will need to decide whether they accept this as an enduring reality to which they need to adapt. Butler correctly refers to fresh attitudes and properly designed mechanisms to do this. And while he is correct that both parties will need to do this, the weight of responsibility falls on the ANC.

Entitlement shattered

The election has conceivably brought the era of one-party dominance to an end. In so doing it has made the ANC’s self-conception obsolete. It is no longer the colossus presiding over the political firmament.

More than this, its presumed entitlement to societal leadership — “the most important moral voice of the country on almost any question facing the country”, as it once put it — should have been shattered. It is hard to see its master design for reshaping the country in its ideological image, the so-called “National Democratic Revolution”, retaining any legitimacy, if indeed it ever had any legitimacy: the pathologies in governance plaguing the country owe much to the ANC’s pretensions of “hegemony”, not least in undermining the separation between party and state and pushing a narrative in which its opponents were forever scheming against it in dark corners (often seditiously), and where they were typically white supremacists to boot. Former president Thabo Mbeki’s ascription of SA’s problems to the “counterrevolution” show that this thinking remains in play.   

It is hard to argue that the ANC has accepted the current circumstances as a new reality. It has struggled even to acknowledge the DA as its key coalition cooperator (let’s not speak of partners yet), preferring the cover of national inclusivity (except, of course, for those excluded) “under the leadership of the ANC”. Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa apportioned a more than generous majority of cabinet positions to his party. 

Fortunately, the ANC has accepted co-operation with the DA over the EFF and MK, the first of which is at best ambivalent about constitutional governance, and the second explicitly hostile to it. The ANC deserves credit for having made the choice it did. 

The challenge will be in coming to terms with a very different mode of politics. All parties must accept that national electoral majorities may well be a thing of the past. In future, parties achieving between a fifth and a third of the vote may well be as good as things get. Indeed, the whole country will have to get used to this. This includes recognising that pluralism is a natural feature of democracy, and even more so in a deeply diverse one, and one that carries a heavy burden of history.

Better inside

For a variety of reasons — class, ideology, ascriptive identity — some parties are likely to remain bound to specific constituencies. SA is hardly alone in this, and voter choices should be respected as legitimate. After all, better inside the institutions than resentfully outside them. 

There will be a need to accept interparty co-operation as the norm, not as an aberration or temporary measure to be jettisoned when possible — the “stopgap” to which Butler refers. This does not imply an end to sharp disagreements but does demand making a distinction between competition in party politics and co-operation in governance. Too often these have been seen as coterminous — including in the appointment of the cabinet.

Viewing governance functions as part of the “terrain of struggle” is a scorched-earth approach for all. And participants in coalition arrangements may find that the failings of the adversaries with whom they have reached an accommodation can be damaging to them too. 

To achieve this, party competition should be conducted with greater restraint and respect for the fragilities of the hugely challenged society that is SA. What author and former journalist Brian Pottinger once termed a “dangerous emotionalism” in SA politics is a persistent threat to the country’s political centre and a powerful weapon to those on its extremes. Above all, promiscuous accusations of racism and appeals to racial solidarity should be abandoned; it is the spearhead of the “anticonstitutional menace”.     

One hastens to add that this is not a call for the denial of racism, but for keeping it in an appropriate perspective. Contemplation rather than a rushing to judge (not to mention recognising that SA has vocal constituencies with political and pecuniary interests in stoking outrage) might even produce more productive public debate on the issue. 

Success metric

With many surveys showing that material and quality-of-life issues top South Africans’ lists of concerns, the Institute of Race Relations argues that the key metric for success for the GNU will be economic growth. True, it will not resolve all the country’s ills, but it is the condition without which none of them are likely to be addressed.

Expanding the economy and achieving a sustained growth rate of 7% must be the consuming priority of this and any future coalitions to follow. Inevitably, this means sensitive policy areas such as industrial plans, race-based empowerment and labour legislation will need to be placed on the table.

Realistically though, that is only likely to be possible once trust and productive co-operation on less highly charged matters have been established. But when such trust is fostered and the inherent legitimacy of all parties to represent their supporters is acknowledged, these are the tough issues that must be up for discussion.

In doing so, co-operation among disparate parties would have a fighting chance to produce tangible successes to be celebrated, fortifying SA as a nonracial, constitutional democracy for generations to come.

Corrigan is projects and publications manager at the Institute of Race Relations

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2024-07-24-terence-corrigan-jury-is-out-on-whether-coalitions-can-be-made-to-work/