KGOTHATSO MADISA | Opposition parties are shooting for the moon, but are they all on the same page?

As opposition parties gear up for their convention to unseat the ANC, there are several key hindrances they need to resolve before even getting into the crux of how the opposition coalition initiative will look.

One of them is discussing the glaring trust issues among themselves.

It has become evident that there are significant trust issues emerging from the Moonshot Pact early in the process. The two-day meeting has to frankly deal with them or risk the entire process collapsing.

At the heart of the trust deficit is the perceived off-the-book talks the DA seems to be having with the ANC, while still portraying itself as committed to the pact.

Parties such as ActionSA and the Freedom Front Plus want the DA to sign an undertaking that if their coalition group fails to win enough votes to form the next government, it will not enter into a separate governing agreement with the ANC. But the DA refuses to, arguing that it initiated the Moonshot initiative, which is evidence enough of its commitment to remove the ANC from power.

But the DA’s refusal to sign the declaration does not sit well with a suspicious ActionSA, which was formed after its leader Herman Mashaba broke away from the DA, arguing that the party was not serious about ousting the ANC from office.

Therefore the major task for the DA and its leader John Steenhuisen over the next two days will be to win over the confidence of their partners and convince them the second-biggest-political party is not riding two horses at the same time.

It was perhaps a mistake on the part of the DA to not invite certain other opposition to the initiative. Judging by the current parliamentary leaders, an opposition coalition government stands a much better chance if it is made up of all opposition parties, rather than just those the DA finds palatable.

Without the EFF, UDM, Patriotic Alliance, ACDP, NFP, ATM, Al Jama-ah, Cope and Good the chances of mounting a serious challenge to the ANC seem ill-informed.

With just the seven parties that are signatories to the Moonshot Pact, it is unlikely they will reach the 50% plus one majority when one looks at the results from 2019.

The DA with its 20%, ActionSA and IFP’s likely 5% each, and Freedom Front Plus’s 5%, and a bit here and there from the other smaller parties, the pact in its current form is likely to garner just shy of 30-35% of the national vote.

So an honest discussion has to be had with the DA’s Steenhuisen to reconsider his position on refusing to invite other opposition parties.

ActionSA and IFP are clear that other parties should be invited. In fact, despite the DA declaring EFF enemy number one, the IFP believes an invitation should be extended to the red berets.

The other problem facing Steenhuisen as the meeting starts, is the manner in which he initially announced the Moonshot Pact. With the elections around the corner, the other opposition parties do not want to be seen by the electorate as mere extensions of a DA agenda. Hence he may need to make compromises on the name and even the pact structure, just to assure the other parties that the DA is not playing Big Brother. ActionSA ad Freedom Front Plus have made it clear they want it changed.

The UDM raised the concern of the DA seemingly playing Big Brother sharply in a letter in response to Steenhuisen’s invitation to the pact.

DA and ActionSA remain the two biggest parties in the pact. Their unfriendly relations risk unnecessary disagreements that could collapse the entire project.

Perhaps it is understandable why Steenhuisen announced the initiative in the manner he did just after the DA congress earlier this year. He had just won the leadership race, confirming him as a man who would take the DA to perhaps its most important national election. He had to give his rank and file a line of march and a target to judge his tenure against. But the downside of the approach was that he seemed like he was imposing a DA strategy upon his likely partners who were merely being invited to come along for the ride. It will take a lot of work for him over the next two days to convince the others that he is serious about the partnership and that the DA doesn’t see them as “junior partners”.

Yes, parties such as ActionSA, UDM and others have expressed their displeasure at this, but they need to address it in the official platform.

Also of importance is to address the seemingly hostile relations between Steenhuisen and ActionSA chair Michael Beaumont. The two just seem to not see eye to eye and tend to speak over each other on important matters.

DA and ActionSA remain the two biggest parties in the pact. Their unfriendly relations risk unnecessary disagreements that could collapse the entire project.

The parties should discuss how they all, collectively and individually, communicate what the pact is and what it is meant to achieve.

Even when these issues get resolved, the biggest problem facing them will be how they promote the pact without each party losing its identity.

Perhaps the initiative may have to devise a strategy to inform the electorate that they will contest the election next year as individual parties and that any coalition agreement will be entered into after the vote.