At the 32nd anniversary of Chris Hani's assassination yesterday, at his birthplace in Sibalele village, Deputy President Paul Mashatile announced that the GNU would be “reconfigured”, specifically to promote parties other than the DA:

“We have reached agreements, and we must respect those agreements. Now the leadership of the ANC, after what has happened recently, decided that we are going to reconfigure the alliance. We are going to reconfigure that alliance […] to ensure that we bring other parties on board to work with us, but also to ensure that we discuss this properly with all the parties.

[Let us discuss] what comrade Chris taught us when we were busy negotiating namabhunu, the oppressors. […C]omrade Chris Hani said to us, and I don’t forget these words - everything I do, I carry these teachings with me - ‘remember that at some point, when you have to cross a river, you will have to ride on the back of a crocodile. You remember, crocodile is not going to be friendly.’

That’s why some of us, when we are accused [of collaborating, we say] ‘no, I’m dealing with a crocodile’. And when you deal with a crocodile, you must deal with it with your eyes wide open […] I’m lying on his back to cross the river.”

The understanding here is clear - the DA must be diluted, because their refusal to obey ANC diktat is unacceptible to the party. While they understand the importance of maintaining appearances, Mashatile is closer with the radical exiled factions - the EFF and MK - and his prominence in leading the delivery of this news suggests his faction may be gaining ground.

Nobody really knows what it will look like when the dust settles, but with several DA advisors and members calling for (or at least considering the possibility of) leaving the GNU, it is clear they are finding it increasingly difficult to put on a brave face.

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The root of the problem

Last week, Prince Mashele gave a talk at the BizNews conference which, while moderate, was radical in the etymoogical sense - it went for the root issue. At the deeper level, he sees it as a symbol of unity which is vital to the continued survival of the country. If white and black cannot co-govern, then South Africa is done for, and everyone will head for the exits and grab what they can on the way.At least on a subconscious level, all participants in the coalition appear to understand the problem in the same way.

In practical terms, Mashele described the GNU as a "bridge" that facilitates South Africa’s navigation to the other side of our present turbulent journey through postrevolutionary fantasy. 30 years of ANC rule, while stable, has also been suffocating and corrosive, and voters recognise this, even if only superficially.

For players like Helen Zille, with her belief that the world should be a college of multicultural territories centrally managed by an unaccountable global regulatory body (kinda like the Soviet Union, ironically), the need for a multiracial coalition, a phrase she has used herself in various forms, is obvious if one wishes to maintain the image of South Africa as an attractive microcosm of the global future. But this middle path is both extremely radical at its core, and highly unattractive to most people who grasp it.

Dispute over this kind of question locally plays out as a question that always hold in back of mind the philosophy of apartheid - either we do inequality and separation, or we do forced material equality and majoritarianism. Zille's radical globalist vision is generally filed under the former category by black voters, and under the latter by whites. She and her party have been unable to convince voters that she is in fact offering a third way, especially since it remains an inherently fragile image.

The obvious decision faced when one admits the country cannot be united, is then what to do about it. The choices seem to be Zimbabwe or the end of the Soviet Union. But most South Africans, especially elites, seem unable to accommodate any nuance between universal egalitarianism and apartheid, and anything that doesn’t look like the former is inevitably feared to be the latter.

So elites are forced to contain the forces of criticism that deign to glance at the roots of this tangled mess, in order to preserve a unified state, not because it is in the general interest, but because it may cause us to think thinks which are forbidden.

That means that the united vision is inherently sterile, one which hopes for some national character to emerge after organically after welding us together artificially for another half century.

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Crisis

The forced collaboration of enemies, as Mashele puts it, is necessarily going to result in a chaotic and slightly paralysed arrangement. The DA participates not to strengthen the ANC but to weaken it, aiming to position itself for future governance, while the ANC similarly seeks to undermine the DA.

This is seen by almost all elites, whether commentators, investors or politicians, as the best option under current circumstances to maintain governance stability, until the country manages to shift to a new dispensation, and preventing chaos in an open political field where no single party will dominate for at least 15 years.

Mashele cites historical coalitions like the NP-Labour coalition of 1924, to point out that it is only when the leaders of ethnic factions are bound together that the country can form a stable system.

But this is only half the picture. The English and Afrikaner ethnic groups have continued to range themselves on opposite sides of the political spectrum since the beginning, and the 1924 coalition was a horseshoe coalition aimed at undermining the imperial centrist government of Smuts and state capture by the Chamber of Mines though nationalist-labour populism (sound familiar?).

The later fusion of NP and SAP was reunification of radical and moderate Afrikaners into an ethnic coalition that aimed to contain radical sentiment, but only worked for a couple of election cycles before a re-formed NP took centre stage.

In a similar fashion, the ANC’s splintering has not seen a major shift in popular sentiment towards the movement as a whole, and the black voter is still married to two key themes - blacks come first, and welfare must expand. The DA knows this, and has been trying (with some tentative and marginal success) to attract black voters by attacking AfriForum and Solidariteit, and defending BEE and land expropriation.

Their budget proposals have been marginal fiddling, offering to exchange a VAT increase or an increase in fuel and medical aid tariffs, and stripping a petty R70 billion from a couple of departments, dwarfed by the R425 billion annual debt servicing costs.

The broad theme Mashele brings is true - if you cannot contain centrifugal forces, the machine flies apart. The DA has been very good at capturing the minority vote, and the slow-moving, self-serving and impotent nature of their rightward competition has made it easy for them, despite a target-rich rhetorical environment.

The dark side of this is that it rests on the manipulation and suppression of the interests of one group at the expense of the other. To rectify South Africa’s economic problems, welfare and other big ticket expenditures will have to be stripped away, which will hurt black voters the most. To ensure black voters remain happy in the short- to mid-term, the state must continue to punish minorities and the private sector, risking doom.

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Deadlock

Yet Mashele is not all rainbows and sunshine either. He reckons that the GNU will collapse by 2028, driven by a settled pattern in the ANC - each National Conference removes the president of the party after their second term. The new ANC leadership will rise on an anti-Ramaphosa and anti-GNU platform, leading to the coalition’s dissolution.

ANC support is predicted to slide to 30% or below by 2029 driven by loss of credibility and the emergence of Jacob Zuma’s MK party. If no party can maintain a majority for the next decade or so, we must ask ourselves what the broad factions are.

The obvious answer is that this is about whether one appeals to the economic elite, racial minorities, or black nationalists. The economic elite want continuity, and both minoritarian and majoritarian forces want radical reform. But continuity is short-sighted, and reform is dangerous.

Efforts to save the GNU have been evident, with business leaders writing to ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa and DA leader Steenhuisen oto urge resolution. This week, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula, rejected speculation of a cabinet reshuffle or DA expulsion, but Mashatile’s bold statements yesterday suggest that control is slipping to the radical faction, and that the “moderate” coalition within the ANC may not have a very strong grip on things.

Yesterday isn’t the first time this past week that Paul Mashatile has taken a more prominent role. On Monday the 7th, at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation business breakfast, he criticized DA Cabinet ministers for staying in the coalition after opposing the budget, calling their actions disingenuous and suggesting shame in their position. He stated the GNU's future would be decided by that evening in the ANC's National Working Committee, positioning himself as a key communicator over the President.

There is a possibility for a slim ANC majority if they manage to exclude the DA and VF+, but it would be extremely tenuous. The possibility which emerges is that the long view is an ANC reunification - with the MK dissolving and returning in part to a Mashatile-led ANC after the death of Zuma.

Whichever way you slice it, the DA has proven not to even be much of a doorstop, which was their minimum bar for success. The ANC is the most moderate national-level political party capable of attracting meaningful black votes, but not only is their grip slipping, the grip of the moderates within the party is slipping too.

The fact that black elites simply cannot work together with whites seems increasingly evident, and Helen Zille’s past remarks that she would rather work with Ramaphosa than any smaller party, and their semi-official social media cheerleader “Goolam” consistently praising the clearly racist and corrupt Ramaphosa shows that they are clinging onto dreams of ANC moderation by their fingernails.

The intolerance of black elites and their refusal (even inability) to entertain serious economic and race-law reforms brings land reform into sharp focus - for those who remember, Mugabe did not liquidate white farms at the height of his power, but when the ongoing fiscal crisis took away his ability to compensate his cadres with cash.

The direction of the travel is locked in, and the ship is taking on water.

It’s time to bail.

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