It seems to me that the ANC does not want to govern, does not want to make people’s lives better and does not even want to stay in power.
It wants to stay in office where it can continue to draw fat salaries, enjoy blue light convoys and have access to sumptuous accommodation for politicians across the country.
A party which has a clear programme and knows that it must implement it within a five-year time frame would seek to ensure it has the power, the support in cabinet, parliament and in society to implement such an agenda.
It would want to build a strong parliamentary and executive alliance to ensure that, by the end of five years, it has something positive to boast about.
The ANC failed to win a strong mandate in May 2024, so with its 40% it has been forced to go into a coalition with the DA and eight other small parties.
If the ANC and DA agreed on a policy, they can get it implemented very easily and quickly: together they command more than 60% of the National Assembly and the GNU.
If the ANC cosies up to the rest of the parties in the GNU, or others outside the GNU as it has been doing, it dilutes its and the GNU’s power.
Any party outside the DA that can pull the ANC back from the 50% it needs to move on policy immediately has a power that does not match its electoral support.
By giving power to these small parties and dumping the DA, the ANC would be jumping from the discomfort of a strong GNU alongside the DA as a main partner to the absolute hell of having to placate eight or more small parties.
That is what the ANC is doing now. The ANC’s proposals for how decisions should be reached in a new, reconfigured GNU as reported in City Press on Sunday point to the fact that, in the party’s new thinking, power will now lie in the hands of the eight small parties in the GNU.
They would now be able to hold up action on a vast array of policies and executive actions by denying the ANC the ability to reach a 50% plus one threshold.
Indeed, it seems to me the ANC is toying — at a national level — with the disaster that it engineered in the City of Joburg when it gave residents two successive hapless mayors from a 0.5% party. The results of that are here for all to see.
The draft rules suggest parties will in future only need to reach “majority consensus” of 50% in the National Assembly if they want to resolve a dispute.
This is vastly different from the current definition of consensus signed last June.
Clause 19 of the GNU Statement of Intent states that sufficient consensus exists when parties have had the opportunity to express their views and “parties to the GNU representing 60% of seats in the National Assembly agree”.
The 60% bar is deliberate and smart, in my view, because it aims to deter gridlock and blackmail.
It gives the ANC and DA the ability to implement policy as the two key players in the GNU.
In the new, draft, Mashatile-led rules, if a small party tries to use its small percentage to bring the level of parties agreeing to a policy to below 50% it can do so — and immediately scupper a policy initiative or agreement.
The ANC might think agreeing to the action demanded by such a small party would break the deadlock.
Yes, it might, but we know enough about politics, politicians and their shenanigans to be very aware that it is not just principle that moves them.
They could demand money, positions or other inducements. We have seen this happen numerous times.
The ANC is clearly trying to break the DA’s “negative power” in the GNU through these new proposals.
It is, however, shooting itself in the foot because it now opens itself up not just to the power of the DA, with which it is largely in agreement in policy terms, but to the shenanigans of eight or more other parties.
The ANC is pushing a definition of consensus that ices out the DA and leaves the ANC with its 40% supported by the IFP (4.3%), the Patriotic Alliance (2.3%), the FF Plus (1.5%), UDM (0.75%), Rise Mzansi (0.5%), Al Jama-ah (0.5%), the PAC (0.25%) or GOOD (0.25%).
It might win now, but it is putting its head in the guillotine. When some of these small parties taste power, they will hold the ANC hostage to get what they want.
The ANC is cratering the GNU agreement signed in 2024 to make itself even weaker than it has been these past 10 months.
Under these new rules, we will be governed by a multi-headed Hydra instead of the two-headed bull we have.
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