South Africa’s Government of ‘National Unity’ |

There has been a wailing and gnashing of teeth of biblical proportions on both the left and right of the ideological and political spectrum over what the newly constructed Government of National Unity (GNU) will bring. The anger and despair on the left is matched on the right by what one commentator describes aptly as ‘GNUphoria’.

Cartoonists have caricatured the GNU as a unicorn – depicted as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead. These satirists have unintentionally shown in one caricature simultaneously that the rage, despair and nature of the political predictions of the left, as well as the euphoric exuberance on the right, are as disconnected from reality as the myth of the unicorn itself.

Disorientation of Both Left and Right

From the most unpromising position — the ruins of a 40% vote — the African National Congress, in power for thirty years, has conjured up a “majority” representing 70% of all parties that entered parliament after the 29 May elections. Eleven parties accepted the ANC’s invitation to join the GNU – nine of them given cabinet positions. Not even one of them, from the vanishingly small one-seat formations, to the biggest, could believe their luck. They could not in their wildest dreams have imagined that they would ever make up part of the government much less govern departments individually.

The country is now led by an ANC reliant on the support of political parties who are beneficiaries of its political patronage. They are willing collaborators in the mythology created around the GNU, that this change of acting-roles, in a political play of deception, represents the “will of the people”.  The GNU is a coalition of the rejected – imposed on the people in an insulting repudiation of their will.

The predominant issue in the debate, commentary and analysis of the outcome of the elections has understandably been the unmitigated electoral disaster for the ANC. But there is little comfort for the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA). It not only failed to regain the ground lost since its 22% high water mark in the 2014 elections but lost over 300,000 votes.

Of greater importance, however, is the fact that all the parties in parliament, both those in the GNU and those in opposition, were collectively voted into office by only 16 million out of a total of 42.3m eligible voters. Nearly 60% of those with the right to vote could not see in any of these parties any they could register and/or vote for. Those who described this as a case of SA’s democracy “maturing” are correct only in the sense that the maturing of milk turns it sour.

The construction of the GNU is a classic example of the essence of elections under bourgeois parliamentary democracy. They are intended to deceive the oppressed and exploited majority that whoever is elected governs with their consent. They are intended to secure their submission to what is hidden behind the mask of parliamentary democracy — the economic dictatorship of the capitalist class – an infinitesimally small minority.

The will of the people?

The GNU is a confirmation of what Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Rosa Luxembourg have all pointed out. Lenin, leader, alongside Trotsky, of the Russian Revolution in October 1917, sums it up in his work State and Revolution. Under capitalism, democracy and the institutions through which it is managed, e.g. parliament, can only ever be “democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich — that is the democracy of capitalist society. The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”

Not even one of the parties in parliament represents the “will of the people” individually; nor do they do so collectively. To claim that the GNU is an expression of the “will of the people” is the height of cynicism and hypocrisy. As a percentage of the eligible voting population all these parties collectively received only 38% – after taking into account those who did not register to vote and those who registered but did not then cast their ballots. Therefore, the ANC’s 40% represents only 16% of the eligible voting population. This places in true context the dismal position of the three biggest parties after it, the DA, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). All four of them are separated from each other only by the degree to which they have been rejected.

They have all failed individually and collectively to secure the support of the inheritors of the right to vote, for which the oppressed majority fought, and tens of thousands laid down their lives in the struggle against colonialism and apartheid. In fact, the arrogant contempt for the masses as the GNU was presented was revealed in the undertone of the “this should teach them!” resentment towards the electorate for the humiliation they inflicted on the ANC.  Asked about concerns over the cost of the bloated GNU cabinet, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said this was “an outcome of voters’ choices” – and indicated that if voters were unhappy, they should consider making different choices in the next election. Voters must accept that “in order to make lemonade from lemons”, there’s a cost, Ntshavheni said.” (Daily Maverick 04/07/2024)

The GNU is an insulting imposition of the will of the minority – the political and economic elite. The form it has taken may not be the ‘minority government’, one of the models it had available. In class terms, however, it is a minority government – a government of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich. The ANC has announced insolently that the electorate’s message was that this collection of political rejects should govern together. This a mimicry of the words of Humpty Dumpty, who had a great fall, in Alice in Wonderland: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” Rejection means acceptance. No means yes.

National unity?

The Statement of Intent signed by all GNU parties states: “The 2024 national and provincial election was highly contested and, at times, divisive. The results of the election have the potential to foment further political and social fragmentation. Relatively low levels of voter turnout and registration suggest growing alienation from the political system.”

In selecting ‘national unity’ as the basis of the GNU, the ruling elite is attempting to distract attention from the real cause of the socio-economic and political crisis – the disastrous neo-liberal capitalist policies of the last three decades. This diagnosis, shared by all the GNU partners, that the crisis is due to the ANC’s failure to “unite the nation”, is false.

The electorate’s emphatic rejection on 29 May arose not out of a failure to “unite the nation”, the mandate they have now invented to fool the people. It is a deliberate attempt to throw dust into the eyes of the masses. The GNU partners have merely agreed to take collective responsibility for the same policies that lie at the centre of the social and economic crisis is in society.

There are undoubtedly tensions in society amongst the different racial, tribal and ethnic groups about their sense of marginalisation. Their outlook is shaped by the fact that e.g. the spatial settlement patterns remain as racially segregated today as they were under apartheid. The Patriotic Alliance (PA), ActionSA, the National Coloured Congress and MK, led by former-ANC president Jacob Zuma, have cynically exploited these sentiments to elevate themselves into office to enjoy perks, highly-paid positions and access to state resources for self-enrichment and in furtherance of their leaders’ ambitions. These parties have stepped into the vacuum created by the absence of a working class party. However, these identity politics tensions do not dominate the outlook of the masses. This is shown by their  limited electoral impact, despite the size of MK’s vote. The PA and MK, owe their outsized public profile to their theatrics in and outside the GNU. In cynically exploiting these tensions, these parties have unwittingly presented the ANC with the political raw material out of which to construct the “national unity” propaganda.  Whatever segment of the population’s sentiments they have chosen to exploit politically, they all stand on the same side of the gulf that separates the classes in SA’s capitalist society – on the side of the capitalist ruling class.

Rogue’s gallery of the (dis) ‘honourable’

Whilst the capitalist class has broadly welcomed the GNU, there is well-founded scepticism within the working class about its prospects. There will be little sympathy for ministers sacrificed because of the ANC’s fewer seats.

But a cloud continues to hang over many who survived the electoral cull and have merely been redeployed to accommodate other GNU parties in a reconfigured executive. Those, prominent by seniority or by disrepute, have been retained also to maintain the ANC’s factional truce that has prevailed since Ramaphosa got soaked under the sewage-shower of the Phala Phala corruption scandal. The ANC leadership’s calculation was that to save itself from electoral calamity it had to save Ramaphosa. To now remove Ramaphosa despite the calamity, would precipitate an uncontrollable factional civil war.

MK may not be in the GNU cabinet but it has been compelled to accept deployees from MK into positions in parliamentary structures. To pull off this charade, the ANC had no choice but to select candidates from the rogue’s gallery of MPs tainted by corruption allegations from both its own ranks, as well as parties like MK and the Patriotic Alliance. The latter two are the leading contenders for the most repugnant of political formations that have filled the vacuum created by the absence of a mass working class force on the left of the political terrain. Appointments from these parties both in cabinet and parliamentary structures make a mockery even of the hypocritical pretences that ordinarily form the foundation of bourgeois democracy.

MK, a six-month-old start-up, reliant on the financial patronage of construction-mafia types, taxi bosses and underworld figures became the third largest party. It owes its public profile to social media celebrities and using the very legal system rejected by its parliamentary leader for frivolous legal challenges. MK provides refuge for the discredited like impeached former public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane. If any appointment is calculated to have a debilitating effect on the GNU parliament’s credibility it would be that of the former judge John Hlope as a member of the Judicial Services Commission. He was impeached for attempting to influence Constitutional Court judges in favour of Zuma in his arms deal related corruption trial. But not only has he been honoured as MK parliamentary leader; he is now responsible for determining the suitability of candidates for appointment to the judiciary!

The voters’ scepticism would be reinforced by the appointment of convicted criminal and unapologetic xenophobe, racist and Israeli-genocide denialist, Gayton McKenzie, as Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture. Marx explained that religion is the “opium of the masses, the sigh of the oppressed, heart of a heartless world.”  “National Unity” is the secular equivalent. It is calculated to persuade the masses that their misfortune is not the result of their oppression and exploitation by the capitalist ruling class. Under capitalism “national unity” acts as a veil to cover class divisions. Its objective is to convince the working class that having the boot of the capitalists on their necks is the natural order of things. Under capitalism “national unity” means the reconciliation of the slave and the slave master.

The position of the DA, MK and EFF on the GNU

The GNU is understandably central to the character of the seventh post-apartheid administration. But parliament’s opposition benches are very much a necessary part of the architecture to lend credibility to bourgeois parliamentary democracy. To give the GNU multi-party credibility, appointments had to be made from different parties to cabinet, into the expanded number of the powerless deputy ministries, speakers as well as portfolio committee chairs. It is an attempt to conceal the substance of the GNU behind its appearance as a capitalist coalition spearheaded by the ANC.

The DA may be the GNU’s “anchor tenant” as one bourgeois commentator analyst noted with smug satisfaction; but the ANC remains the landlord. It is the political equivalent of a controlling shareholding by the biggest minority. It is with the ANC that real power lies.

DA Chairperson Helen Zille’s insistence, recklessly from the standpoint of the capitalists, that this is no GNU, but an ANC/DA coalition, reveals only her own failure to fully grasp the situation the DA found itself in on 29 May. Her persistence with this public campaign will reinflame tensions in the DA and represent a direct challenge to Steenhuizen’s authority as party leader.

Comfortably ensconced in the not insubstantial post of Agriculture Minister, Steenhuizen cannot get on with his job and condone the threat of the GNU’s collapse inherent in Zille’s histrionics. As an indicator of the dim view the DA’s funders are taking, opinion pieces in the capitalist press are already beginning to ask her to shut up. Her ousting from leadership in 2014 has already set a precedent.

MK‘s initial rejection of the election results, attempt to challenge them legally and to stop parliament from sitting, ruled them out of a GNU cabinet. Its denunciation of the GNU in pseudo radical rhetoric, its initial boycott of parliament, as well as its presumed ‘bottom line’, a presidential pardon for Zuma was impossible to concede even for the highly unprincipled ANC.

For all its posturing, MK could not sustain its boycott and risk the loss of their seats. The attraction of parliamentary salaries and perks took precedence over their “principles” and politically meaningless protestations.

MK and the EFF’s arguments that a “real GNU” could only be constituted out of black parties, is double-sided deception. MK and the EFF’s real grievances are the failure of the black capitalist class to realise its aspiration to rise to the summits of the economy in correspondence with the country’s demographics. Its programme is to replace “white monopoly capital” with economic domination by the black capitalist class. It promotes the falsehood that with a predominantly black capitalist class owning the commanding heights of the economy, the working class would be emancipated from exploitation and oppression. They are in fact aiding and abetting the central falsehood of “national unity” – that the real divisions in society are not between the classes but between the races.

In counterposing their “progressive coalition” of black parties to the GNU they are displaying the same contempt for the masses as the GNU parties themselves. The masses are being asked to forget that the country has been ruled by a black government for the past thirty years. For the entire thirty years Zuma was a member of the ANC and served as president when the black government he headed carried out the worst massacre in post-apartheid history at Marikana which he has emphatically defended and justified.

MK and the EFF are thus also contributing to the attempt to divert the attention of the working class from recognising that its real enemy is the capitalist class, white and black. They are actively colluding in sowing confusion and fertilising the ground for working class divisions on the basis of tribe. That all these developments could unfold in the most unequal country in the world and where therefore the classes are the most sharply polarised, is due to the absence of a mass workers party.