GNU: A year of limbo in no man’s land

By Phakamisa Mayaba

In the hullabaloo about the GNU’s first anniversary, it is perhaps Cyril Ramaphosa’s proposed National Dialogue – dubbed another useless talk shop – that has overshadowed the moment. His silver tongue notwithstanding, this endeavour has been met with overwhelming apathy and nothing to suggest any fireworks when it has bedded down to the sweaty business.

A year ago when the GNU was unveiled, the markets approved, big business grinned, new Cabinet recruits got in on the pinstriped suits, and a few apprehensive SAffers may even have popped the bubbly. It was on the money, except currency and ideology can’t always find succor under the same roof with purists. They, the self-appointed custodians of the liberation movement’s conscience, would be sure to vet potential partnerships severely.

For them, it was a matter of fraternising with people who looked like them (read: black) and sang from the same hymnal of black economic empowerment, anti-white monopoly capital, and all the other strictures of the liberation-struggle denomination.

As such, any talk with the DA — considered in these circles as the very heartbeat of whiteness, privilege and neoliberalism — would be sacrilege, an act of selling out once more. But what did the alternative look like?

Burying the hatchet with Zuma, variously a polarising figure or the self-styled godfather of radical economic transformation, depending on who’s analysing. The one on whose watch the ANC found itself marred by factionalism, patronage and avarice. Or they could let bygones be bygones with Malema, the prodigal son who was already putting forth uncompromising demands and is known for having this done his way or the highway.

In the end, the ANC settled with the DA and a number of smaller parties. The markets approved, although tested ideologies were all but buying into it. SA had, however, averted what is par for the course in many  countries where a majority party is shown an unconvincing mandate at the polls and forced to share power: mayhem, civil unrest, and first flights out.

But we stayed put. A few hostile elements challenged the results. Murmurs swirled around possible plots to distabilise the country, an imminent sequel to the 2021 July riots. Mobs wreaking economic havoc — plasma TVs on shoulders, storefronts smashed in, and armed vigilantes ready to blow people’s brains out. The price tag afterwards? Best-case scenario would be another R50 billion down the drain, but the worst might even mean a violent coup.

The MK party, with Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla facing charges of incitement, and her father — former president Jacob Zuma, back with a vengeance from political refrigeration and calling for ‘umshini wam’ — were threatening enough to give onlookers palpitations. Add to this a belligerent Julius Malema invoking the sound of a machine gun in packed stadiums and all over Twitter. It was unnerving — one dumb move, and who knew?

But the ANC, to universal respect, publicly conceded defeat, and said it was open to working with anyone. An exemplary path for the war-prone continent, one that north of Beit Bridge would have you sjambokked to within an inch of your life if your wore the wrong colours. Instead of the path to power-mongering, they took the high road of diplomacy and negotiation, even if that meant feigning grins with Godzille and the DA.

From the outset, it was clear that the union would hit many rocks before it would convince anybody of its legitimacy. Ten parties of disparate sizes signed up, so you were never going to please everybody. And you definitely weren’t going to agree on everything. BEE or merit. Coal or renewables. Which ministry to which party?

But most glaringly, with everybody bent on scoring points, internal sabotage was inevitable, and you weren’t going to achieve anything if it looked like you were outshining the next guy. Especially not the ANC. And especially if you wanted to boast about it every chance you got. It would’ve also been an unenviable position to co-operate with fellow partners while honouring the election promises made to the constituency that put you there.

More so if some of the legislation on the table were going against everything your party stands for – including the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act (BELA) and Land Expropriation Without Compensation Acts – as well as a VAT hike. For traditionally white parties like the DA or Freedom Front Plus, it would’ve been a breach of faith with their supporters to simply prattle along without questions or protest. As such, the DA has taken the government which it is part of to court on at least four occasions.

Without a clear policy framework, it was clear that these guys were hobnobbing it out as they went along. Trial and error-ing their way to some semblance of a functional, unified government that could maintain investor confidence while attending to the nation’s most pressing shortcomings.

Sadly, though, in this regard it has fallen woefully short of the mark. At a debilitating 43.1 per cent, expanded unemployment continues to shatter hopes and dreams. And, with the economy currently crawling along at a negligible 0.1 per cent growth rate, things are barely looking up. Given the government’s inability to use technological advances to create jobs for young people in particular, the GNU’s successes have little bearing on the ground.

More worrisome is the obvious absence of ideas that have led to the desperate utterances recently made by trade, industry and competition minister Parks Tau. He basically gave up the jig — effectively doing a Pontius Pilate — when he agreed with Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie that StatsSA should include the activities of those in the informal economy when writing up the employment statistics.

This idea was quickly slammed as government’s way of trying to whitewash the damning unemployment realities. Comparisons were soon drawn with how, in the face of horrendous matric performance, government has taken to lowering the bar in order to look good while ultimately failing to address the deeper issues in the education system.

Yes, the GNU is getting on, and the centre appears to be holding. But perhaps Ramaphosa should thank the likes of Tau, who’s offered distractions to his own apparent inability to generate genuinely creative ideas. Come on now, another talk shop when poll after poll shows that people have no appetite for politicking or talking? All they want are jobs, whether that’s from the GNU in its current form or with Malema or Zuma in the mix. At the end of the day, it’s not politics that fills the belly, but good old-fashioned wages.

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