South Africa needs the Government of National Unity (GNU). However, the DA's participation in this political arrangement has always been fraught with challenges. Its rejection of the 2025 national budget may have come as the last straw for the GNU, but it reveals how the DA’s posture has always been as a GNU partner: primus inter pares — first among equals.
Of course, the DA is the second-largest party in South Africa, after the ANC, following the 2024 general elections that did not produce an outright winner to constitute a government on its own — hence the GNU, an arrangement with an inspiring heritage of a consensus-driven system of governance to forge national unity. This co-operative system also enables different parties to hold each other accountable for policy choices that affect the country’s future.
In the GNU, the notion of smaller parties is neither here nor there. Thus bigger parties cannot simply run roughshod over the smaller ones. The GNU is inherently about compromises, not political showmanship, where partisan interests are put aside for the greater good of society.
Thus ordinarily as the GNU partner, any misgivings the DA had with the 2025 budget should have been addressed through cabinet processes or other GNU dispute resolution mechanisms to forge unanimity before it was presented to parliament. Or perhaps the DA attempted this by trying to persuade the ANC and other GNU partners on the Treasury’s proposal regarding the country’s fiscal choice but failed. If so, was it justified to take it outside the GNU processes and assume an oppositional stance in parliament against the very government it is part of?
Through its ministers, the DA has consistently worked in a manner that seeks to create the impression of operating its own government within government. This does not bode well for the cohesion of the GNU
I think the DA has overplayed its political significance in the GNU. However, this is not surprising as it has never really been for the GNU, but a grand coalition. The DA’s federal council chairperson, Helen Zille, repeated this several times, stating that her party, due to its relatively greater size, holds the balance of power, implying that other smaller parties in the GNU merely play second fiddle at the political margins. She could not have been more wrong. Smaller parties debunked this as a delusion of political hubris by ensuring the 2025 national budget was passed, albeit by a narrow margin, without the DA’s support. This is telling of the power of smaller parties.
The DA went to court on a technical-legal issue related to the procedure for passing the fiscal framework — yet another political blunder, as some may interpret this as sour grapes because it failed to stop the budget from being passed. This move could only serve to harden attitudes in the GNU rather than mend relations. The judicial process cannot settle the political question of the GNU, where at its core lies the politics of the grand coalition that the DA uses to rationalise its pursuit of power-sharing.
The political landscape in South Africa has shifted so fundamentally that the size of a party is no longer a reliable indicator of policy influence. A key lies in using political power strategically. The size of a party matters less now, but rather the political acumen to navigate the balance of power. The DA’s daring brinkmanship on fiscal policy appeared to have overlooked this existential reality, hence its reckless political strategy — a case of cutting off its nose to spite its face. However, does this mean the DA has finally met its fate in the GNU? This depends on its courage to extricate itself from the contradiction it created of entering the GNU with the logic of the politics of grand coalition, thus tying itself in knots.
Being in the GNU crudely means relinquishing the privileges of being the opposition party by becoming a collaborative partner in governing the country. This is a bitter political pill the DA must swallow, including outgrowing its condescending posture towards smaller parties. The passage of the 2025 budget has shown that parties being smaller in size does not mean they lack influence. A rethink of how it has been carrying itself in government is also essential. Through its ministers, the DA has consistently worked in a manner that seeks to create the impression of operating its own government within government. This does not bode well for the cohesion of the GNU. Because of this, the question of how the DA ministers can implement the budget their party has rejected is a necessary one. Undeniably, in portfolios where some of its ministers are in charge, such as home affairs, notable improvements are evident. However, this is also the case in other portfolios of ministers from other parties, such as electricity. Thus these must all be ministers of the GNU, not of a party within the GNU, lest governing become a platform for political grandstanding rather than serving the public good.
Coupled with all this, perhaps one of the oddest things the DA has ever done as a partner in the GNU was to undertake, surreptitiously, a trip to Washington outside the official processes of the very government they are part of, regardless of the noble intention: trying to help smooth relations between the US and South Africa. Doing this, in this way, beats the imagination, especially since the government was working on how to engage the Donald Trump administration following his presidency’s unfavourable foreign policy against South Africa, based on lies about Afrikaners being ostracised in this country.
More worrying, though, was the DA being part of the protest at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria against the Bela Bill, which was organised by the very Afrikaner civil society formations such as the Solidarity Movement and AfriForum who have become the proponents of misinformation about South Africa, aiding and abetting Trump’s stoking of racial hostilities in this country. This may lead one to wonder if the DA does not share the same agenda with these Afrikaner formations. Hopefully, it does not. However, the DA needs to demonstrate this by speaking out strongly against Trump’s hostile policy stance towards South Africa, thereby assisting in debunking the falsehood that underpins it, as it is a significant party in South African politics. Thus the DA cannot simply be wished away. However, it must decide whether to assert its political significance through the GNU or the opposition benches in parliament. Unfortunately, it cannot be both.
Hoisted by its own petard, the DA has created its moment of reckoning, with what it has dubbed doomsday looming — the possibility of a coalition between the ANC, Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Front (EFF) and Jacob Zuma’s MK Party (MK). Its condescending posture in the GNU also created an opportunity for the smaller parties to consolidate their power and assert their political significance as kingmakers by breaking political gridlocks.
These confluences portend a danger of destining the DA to the political wilderness, ostracised in the country’s political processes, rendering its relatively great size ultimately worthless. This eventuality is ghastly to contemplate as it may be used to give credence to Trump’s falsehood that white people in South Africa are ostracised. The DA represents a significant number of voters in South Africa. Their voices are essential. To optimise its political significance as the conduit of these, the DA needs to rethink its political strategy in the GNU, lest it betray this at the altar of its folly.
• Maserumule is a professor of public affairs and executive dean of humanities at the Tshwane University of Technology. He chaired the ministerial panel on the professionalisation of the public sector but writes in his personal capacity.
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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