Paul T. Shipale
The DA’s Federal chairperson Helen Zille said the ANC is in a Coalition Government with the DA and not in a Government of National Unity (GNU). According to her, “a Government of National Unity brings all the parties together that would include the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) and MK Party (Umkhonto Wesizwe Party), which it did not,” Zille said.
In a video clip that has gone viral on social media, Zille explains that both parties entered into a coalition “from the beginning”. “President Cyril Ramaphosa came up with this notion of a Government of National Unity, which he thought would be a better way of selling the concept of a coalition to his own party,” she said.
“But it still gave the president the fig leaf he needed to bring in all sorts of smaller parties to say ‘I’m not in a coalition with the DA’,” she said. “Now the truth is that we (DA and ANC) are actually in a coalition because a coalition means that if a party withdraws from the coalition that party falls.”
ANC’s acting spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi, addressing the media on the side-lines of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting that took place at Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, Gauteng on Saturday, Aug 3, 2024, has dared the Democratic Alliance (DA) to exit the Government of National Unity (GNU) or be disciplined because the unity is structured in their favour.
“We won’t beg any party including the DA, we structured the GNU in a way that if they want to walk, they can walk,” he said. Godlimpi was responding to the DA’s Federal chairperson Helen Zille that the two parties were in a coalition government. He said the GNU as it stands, was the most strategic manoeuvre by the ANC to turn an electoral set back into a strategic advantage because after gaining 40% of the vote, the ANC got 70% of ministerial posts in the GNU.
Indeed, following the ANC’s dismal performance in the May 29 elections, the party formed a GNU with other parties including the DA, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Patriotic Alliance (PA), GOOD Party, Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus), United Democratic Movement (UDM), Rise Mzansi and Al Jama-ah.
To accommodate all the parties in the GNU, Ramaphosa increased the number of ministers and deputy ministers, leading to what some observers called a “bloated” Cabinet — the national executive now consists of 77 members. When it came to key positions in the Cabinet, the ANC came out on top and “the DA (which got just six of the 32 ministerial positions) made a huge compromise to keep the ‘doomsday coalition’ away. The DA did initially want around 12 ministerial posts, and they were brought down significantly to 6 ministerial posts.
ANC’s acting spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi addressing the media on the political parties that are said to be ideologically similar to the ANC, gave a brief history saying “when the ANC lost the metros in 2016, the EFF condition for forming Government was that the ANC must remove former President Jacob Zuma as its President. So this Ramaphosa removal thing is not new but was started by the EFF.”
Godlimpi said the ANC’s ideal on constitutionalism was written down in 1923 and went in 1943 to the African Claim Charter. In 1955, it went to the Freedom Charter, in 1986 it went to the Constitutional Principles, in 1989 it went to the Congress for a Democratic Future, in 1993 it went to a Transitional Constitution and it was cemented in the 1996 Constitution.
As such, constitutionalism is a foundational philosophy of the ANC because it believes in the egalitarian principle that no government can justly govern the society unless it is based on the will of the people. “An organization that says one must overthrow constitutionalism and replace it with an arrangement where the sovereign authority of the state must be concentrated in unelected kings is not like the ANC”, Godlimpi said.
For this reason, Godlimpi says the ultimate threat is not to the ANC as a political party per se but to the Republican ideas that the ANC represents as there are political parties in South Africa, if they were to gain a majority, some of the things everyone takes for granted as guaranteed would be a thing of the past.
Against this background, in one of the discussion documents of the ANC it is stated that all opposition parties are a threat to the Republican cause and values that the ANC advocates, including the DA which opposes the policy of affirmative action and land redistribution, and that is not simply a technicality matter but a fundamental philosophical objection to the principles of constitutional egalitarianism.
According to Godlimpi, the DA does not believe in equality and are selective when it comes to the provisions of the constitution as they simply reinforce the positions they hold dear to when it is convenient and when it suits them. Others go to court for electoral disputes but they do not believe in an independent judiciary to have the sovereign authority to adjudicate and arbitrate on disputes.
On the land issue, he says, to go beyond the superficial rhetoric and semantics on how some parties elaborate their policy when in their manifestos they give broader policy perspectives in the introductory texts followed by some incongruent sub-texts which are not progressive and do not adhere to the principles of an egalitarian society.
Conversely, the SACP Secretary General, Solly Mapaila, said the ANC ignored the SACP’s advice in GNU formation to engage the EFF and MK parties and reject what he called “reactionary forces of neo-liberalism” such as the DA and the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus). According to Mapaila, in the ANC there has always been a neo-liberal faction which is a dominant faction today. The other faction that is revolutionary and probably comprising of the SACP and COSATU, was helpless during the configuration of power while the neo-liberal faction sold out the revolution.
Mapaila also revealed that the SA 2024 elections were discussed in Poland last year in June in a conference called “Conference against Totalitarianism and in Defence of Democracy” in which many prominent South Africans participated.
One such participant was Roelf Meyer, a Member of Parliament between 1979 and 1997, he was also the chief negotiator for the National Party government during the negotiations to end apartheid and his positions included Deputy Minister of Law and Order and of Constitutional Development (1986 to 1991) and Minister of Defence in the apartheid South African colonial regime. When the issue of GNU was being discussed, all of a sudden Meyer was resurrected from obscurity somewhere to become a news commentator on the issue of GNU.
Other participants included the current President of Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the leader of UNITA in Angola, the leader RENAMO in Mozambique, Tendai Biti the leader of MDC in Zimbabwe, and probably other leaders of opposition parties in the SADC, the African Continent and all progressive countries worldwide.
There were also the former editor of the Sunday Times, the former editor of Sowetan Newspaper, the editor of the Daily Maverick, which is been funded by the State Department of the USA, and these are all forces working under the guise of the agenda of regime change to dislodge former liberation movements from power in the name of media freedom.
Nevertheless, I fully concur with the views of the ANC’s acting spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi, especially on the ideals of constitutionalism which are similar to other former liberation movements in Southern Africa. Take for instance the example of SWAPO Party of Namibia whose principles are premised on the first attempt by the traditional leaders in the wars of resistance against foreign occupation until the 29 August 1975 SWAPO’s Discussion Paper on the constitution for an independent Namibia a year before the Turnhalle Conference constitution-making.
This was followed by the 30 January 1976 UN Security Council’s guiding constitutional principle; the 29-31 May 1976 Congress in Walvis Bay for a Democratic Future; the August to September 1978 UN Security Council report for a UN supervised transition; the 12 July 1978 Western proposals for the UN supervised transition to independence; the Transitional Constitution which served as a guiding document for the Namibian Constituent Assembly and which was cemented in the adoption of the Constitution in a record time on 9 February 1990. As such, like the ANC, SWAPO’s foundational philosophy is constitutionalism and the rule of law premised on egalitarianism, as written in its 2009 election manifesto, to build a just and caring society, promote democracy, peace and stability and the protection of the territorial integrity of Namibia.
But how far then have we moved up the road towards a democratic society? In what ways has the balance of forces changed since the advent of democracy? Our starting point in this regard is that a democratic society is a conscious construct, dependent on conscious action by politically advanced sections of society.
Over the years of democratic rule, we have become even more keenly aware that we should not be blinded by form: the fact that the majority blacks are, for the first time, occupying the highest political offices in the land; as distinct from content: the reality that colonial relations in some centres of power, especially the economy, remain largely unchanged.
The achievement of democracy has opened up critical space for other political parties and organisations of civil society to flourish. This finds expression in the growth and activism particularly dealing with generic or single-issue campaigns.
However, this ‘social movement’ has manifested contradictory features under democracy. This is partly due to tendencies towards mechanical oppositionism in relation to government or towards an exclusive focus on narrow self-interest while the question of providing services to citizens, the fight against corruption and transformation of the state itself has not been adequately addressed.
Combined with this chasm and high levels of inequality is a value system within society that encourages greed, crass materialism and conspicuous consumption. Related to this is the fact that the means of ideological discourse are dominated by forces with an outlook that is either ambivalent or hostile to principles of human solidarity. Among the consequences of all this are vacuous media discourse, corruption in state institutions and corporate greed reflected in outrageous executive packages, short-termism in the conduct of business and private sector corruption.
The critical question therefore is; do we have the capable leadership not only to withstand the pull of negative values but also to lead society along the road towards a more inclusive democratic society? I am sure that we have but there is room for improvement, especially when I saw a former Head of State conferring President Nangolo Mbumba with the Most Ancient Order of Welwitschia Mirabilis in a ceremony, held on Saturday, 3 August 2024. This event could have taken place on Heroes Day or Independence Day.
In addition, according to Article 32 of the Namibian Constitution, Sub-Article 3 (8(h) which talks about the functions and powers of the President, only the President can confer such honours as he/she considers appropriate on citizens, residents and friends of Namibia in consultation with interested and relevant persons and institutions. In this regard, why didn’t we give such task to the Chief Justice who administered the oath of Office to the President and gave him the instruments of power on the day he was installed as the fourth President of the Republic?
Why a former Head of State while he is on retirement and does not form part of the Presidency? Indeed, the constitution was amended in 2016 to state that the Presidency only consists of the President, the Vice-President, the Minister in the Presidency and Special Advisors to the President, as such excluding the Former Presidents yet he was called to confer President Nangolo Mbumba with the Most Ancient Order of Welwitschia Mirabilis.
Nevertheless, I am happy with the preparation for the upcoming Presidential and National Assembly Elections in November, after the ECN announced that it has registered 1 315 124 eligible voters in the country and at diplomatic missions abroad, which amounts to 81%. The commission’s target was to register 1,5 million of the 1,7 million Namibians eligible to vote. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of my employer and this newspaper but solely my personal views as a citizen.
