The long-planned coalition deal between the DA and the ANC has finally come to fruition. In the past, I have said that while it may be good in the short-term, it will be bad news in the long. How long the “long term” will be, is an important question, especially as we contemplate the campaign for the 2026 local government elections.

The particulars, now that Parliament has concluded its first business, have given a more determined shape to matters. The DA haver secured a fairly complex and firm arrangement with the ANC which prevents the ANC from appealing to parliamentary support form outside the coalition for any legislation, as well as securing for itself a few seats in the cabinet. They are pursuing the devolution of some national competencies as well.

The DA will get to participate in the selection of civil servants, which will mitigate the negative impact of cadre deployment, thought they will still have to negotiate with the ANC over these appointments, which will mean swallowing a great deal of obvious corruption.

Needless to say, if one wants a political coalition to function, one will have to make some compromises. The main compromises are that the DA will overlook certain matters of corruption while they are in power (at least those the ANC tells it to overlook), and will not seek to end BEE or employment equity.

They do have some reforms coming that may mitigate the worst aspects of these problems, though that depends on what level their thinking is at.

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Devolution

The DA has asked for the devolution of transport infrastructure to the provincial level, and the extension of investigatory powers to the Metropolitan police. They are also looking for an increased say in budgeting for provinces, which is currently an exclusive competency of the National Treasury.

This initiative as it applies to policing is welcome, but if it is restricted to Metropolitan municipalities, the Western Cape will not be able to benefit from this beyond the boundaries of the City. If it is instead attached to legislative provisions regarding municipal policing powers, it would give municipal policing structures equivalent powers to the national police.

The DA has yet to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the Constitution, which allows the Provincial Governments to establish municipal police forces. This, together with the aforementioned reform, would effectively allow any province to effectively replace the SAPS in all competencies.

These are all extremely welcome changes, though the usual caveat applies – how much is the DA willing to take advantage of?

They have had a number of opportunities for taking control of several policy areas, but have repeatedly chosen not to. In a candid moment last year, Alan Winde admitted that though he had attempted to get the DA to pursue independent power generation back in 2009, he was told to “trust the ANC” and forget it. The party only began to pursue this path in the last electoral cycle.

On the crime front, they will be dealing with the fact that the Western Cape is the most violent province in the country, largely as the result of a 2011 deal between the gangs and SAPS brokered by Jacob Zuma. Bheki Cele, the Minister for Police responsible for this deal, has stepped down, which indicates that the homicide rate may be about to reverse in the Cape.

The DA has a very good hand in front of them, but will no longer be able to blame the national government for anything – they are the national government now.

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Corruption

As Helen Zille confirmed on 702 this afternoon, they will not be voting along with any votes of no confidence against the president for the Phala Phala scandal, because of the disruptive effect any such challenge would have on the government.

Helen Zille has left open the possibility of impeachment, provided that after another long process of inquiry Ramaphosa is found guilty. However, judging be past commissions of inquiry at this level, which usually takes at least four years to get through from initiation to completion, which is before any criminal proceedings are initiated, we can expect justice to be done in roughly 5-7 years, if at all.

It seems the point is to overlook any load-bearing corruption (that is, corruption which, if prosecuted, would lead to the collapse of the government), and focus on the minnows and the outer-party members.

If one takes the DA’s history of dealing with corruption within their own party, they are unlikely to have much of a problem with this. For over a decade, Zille and Bredell were well aware of corruption issues in several local governments in the Western Cape, particularly Drakenstein and Garden Route, and the members concerned were promoted instead of investigated.

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Policy change

However, there have been some victories – Naledi Pandor, Bheki Cele, Thandi Modise and Thulas Nxesi have been deselected. This is a step forward, though it is hard to say what this means – certainly the loss of Cele indicates potential reform of the police, but whether the loss of Naledi Pandor indicates a pivot on international relations remains to be seen.

From what I have heard, it appears that the ANC is insisting on keeping its current hyperpartisan foreign policy in place. This would make sense, since for the past 30 years, South Africa has sided with either the Eastern bloc (China, Russia, Iran and their allies) or the African Group, in around 90% of the votes in the UN Human Rights Council, regardless of the gravity of the moral situation.

Some are looking at the promises to pursue private contractors for state-owned enterprises, “unbundling” of Eskom, etc. These policies were already in the pipeline, and the DA has simply given them a stamp of approval. The basic pattern of operation is to get a foreign company to handle operations, while an SOE or ANC affiliate retains the controlling share of the business in question.

Black Economic Empowerment and Employment Equity will both remain in place; there has been no discussion thereof that I have been aware of. As for cadre deployment, it would stand to reason that there would be a bit more horse-trading over civil service selections, and a good deal more meritocracy, but this depends on bargaining power, so we will have to wait and see.

But most of what has been agreed to all falls within the DA’s existing policy framework anyway, which is not something they came up with, but simply accepted from the UN. The DA’s officially stated position is that the UN Development Goal framework is such a perfect universal system, that it can and should be uniformally applied everywhere across the planet. As this policy framework comes more into focus, we will have to be more cognisant of its core dynamics.

But that is a story for another day.

The DA have, by signing the GNU statement of intent, agreed to much of the ANC’s existing platform. The language of the document, while it does include a lot of the vague promises which are always present in any country (jobs, efficiency, “evidence-based policy”, economic growth etc), it also holds the DA to the pursuit of very clear ANC ideological goals: racial/institutional “transformation”, social justice, land reform, “tackling spatial inequalities”, several different phrases regarding the expansion of the welfare system, and in particular, the African Agenda 2063 (AA63).

AA63 commits all partners to establishing a few free-market reforms, but also to centralising the regulation of all industries and sectors. This includes a common trade area, unrestricted cross-border travel for all Africans, a uniform mineral taxation scheme, and a central economic forum to consolidate economic planning at the continental level. The agreement also seeks to consolidate the continent under a single Central Bank.

The DA has also crucially been uncritical about the signing of the African Medicines Agency, an agreement which entails the African Union, in partnership with $100 billion from the Bill Gates Foundation, selecting all preferred medical suppliers at a continental level, as well as directing state investment into pharmaceutical companies it prefers. This is a recipe for corruption on an unprecedented scale, though it is hard to tell exactly how these things will go, Africa being Africa and implementation being what it is here.

This may not seem particularly bad to some, but the degree of influence from the Gates Foundation, which is implicated in a number of illegal medical experiments, and aims to use the framework as  means for producing medicines which do not meet safety standards in the first world while receiving accreditation from those same countries. I can recommend the works of Jacob Levitch on this, which can be found in the American journal of Economics and Sociology and in the Routlege Handbook on the Politics of Global Health.  

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Local government

The municipal elections are due in just two years’ time, and there are two issues at stake here. First is the preservation of the present coalition, and the second is the defeat of the radical Charterist parties (MK/EFF). Both can be achieved if the DA takes the ANC into government everywhere where neither of them gets a majority on their own.

This will be made easier by coming legislation, which aims to eliminate small parties from local government, and make coalition agreements legally binding. One of the two amendment bills will extend the period of time for parties to hammer out coalition deals, while capping the requirements to get a seat on council at 1%. The other will make it more difficult to hold a vote of no confidence against the speaker, whip, mayor or deputy mayor.

This means a great deal more stability, and a great deal less representation from anyone who disagrees with the government.

The benefits of extending the coalition agreement to local elections will taste so sweet to those in power that it is almost too good to pass up – especially since it will allow the new national coalition the opportunity to starve dissident factions, not only in the form of party opposition, but also within their own parties, of access to employment in politics.

This would create full-spectrum dominance of every single area of governance in the entire country, ensuring absolutely no opposition to any central government plan anywhere in society. This will create a great opportunity for ANC initiatives like the District Development Model, which will centralise control over all infrastructure projects at the local level.

The genius of this model is that it mutes the lower level of local government, which can be susceptible to outside party control, and places it in the control of the Districts, then forces the districts to form policy in consensus with provincial and national government.

It is hard to say whether the DA will go for this or not – it is the sort of thing they would very much benefit from in their current position, and given their flexibility in such matters, it is difficult to say how much their prior objections to the DDM will affect its implementation now they are in power.

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Can it be fixed?

One of the biggest issues staring us in the face at the moment is the “fiscal cliff” – I have predicted it myself, using some rather crude instruments, but so have better and brighter experts, like Dawie Roodt and Andre Duvenhage. Without a major cut to government spending (on the order of nearly a third of expenditure), or a massive stable increase in GDP (think 5-6%), the likelihood of the national government staying solvent past 2030 is about 50-50, which is pretty dismal.

The DA, judging by the writings of its lead policymakers like Gwen Ngwenya or Leon Schreiber, both of whom are fairly left-wing economically, cutting any sort of state expenditure on free services or welfare grants is out of the question. This may be sensible, considering the vast amount of state dependents (~50% of the population), and the general tendency to political violence.

Additionally, it makes sense that the DA is rubber-stamping the ANC’s “economic liberalisation” model – it doesn’t require firing much of the black middle class from their civil servant and SOE jobs, since all it is is tacking on a few extra operational contracts for foreign corporations, and shuffling the deck internally a little.

These are issues of structural dependency – the state simply cannot afford to cut everyone loose, or they will despair, and at minimum change their votes, if not actively rebel. This means either being prepared to take hard repressive measures, or else prepare people for hardship and compensate them with miracles in other areas, like crime reduction (see recent changes in El Salvador or Argentina for this sort of thing).

So if cuts are not possible, then growth and security remain the only solutions within the realm of possibility. These must be visibly and dramatically achieved, or else the entire charade is over, and we go straight to Zimbabwe, all together, thanks for playing.

One of the great hopes coming out of this mess, is the little-remarked upon endorsement for Afrikaner self-determination which has given life to the old Afrikaner Akkoord, in a new, and less fantasy-driven form - Orania's right to exist has been recognised, and according to insiders in the VF+, the presidency is keen to expand this recognition in a broader "cultural corridor", relfecting the language of the recent Afrikaner Verklaring, which has been signed by every major representative of the Afrikaner people.

And then there's always Cape independence which, while defeated for now, will look more like a live option should the DA fail to achieve their miracle before Ramaphosa's time runs out.

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Cracks in the parties

The main threats are quite clear – the only way the current agreement could blow up is if elements within the major parties forming the coalition refuse to go along with the plans of their bosses. The executives of the ANC and the DA have been keen on this for some time, and arrived at the table with prepared agreements in hand, and the Ramaphosa was only blocked from seeking a direct three-way coalition by the NEC, which forced him to open the process up to all parties.

This means that there is some visible rebellious energy from within the ANC already, and for obvious reasons – this is “the white party” after all – and Ramaphosa, a man who has always been suspiciously close to Rothschild Capital and the Oppenheimer family, was the primary target of the old Gupta/Bell Pottinger propaganda about white monopoly capital – it allowed Zuma to point the finger at Cyril for Marikana. Those grudges will run deep with the rank and file.

For the DA’s part, they are a much more disciplined party, where very little disagreement with any aspect of the party’s doctrines, leadership or policies is tolerated for anyone beneath the federal executive committee, even behind closed doors. Speaking to DA members anywhere elicits an almost unreasonable degree of anxiety if conversation goes beyond the party line. The DA’s risk is of an exodus, though with many senior members moving up, and funding increasing, many potential dissidents can likely be compensated.

The ANC however, has just lost 71 seats, a great deal of funding, and still has a large number of dissenters and old Zuma factionalists still hanging around, just as the number of available civil service positions are about to go down. Additionally, the radical ANC splinter parties (MK/EFF) favour ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile, and feel they can work with him. This is a recipe for a great deal of instability and intrigue.

The leadership election is coming up in 2027, and no ANC leader has served more than two terms in leadership since Oliver Tambo. Nor has either previous South African President managed to survive losing the presidency of the ANC to complete their term in office.

If the IFP leave, the DA and ANC will remain in the majority, though it would result in KZN falling to an MK/EFF coalition, and potentially a great deal of public violence.

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The voter

The biggest headline in this election should be that 2/3rds of the population continues to vote for the ANC or some splinter of the party. And the share of the vote between the minoritarian parties has not changed at all either – the DA took over the share of the vote won by the NP in 1994, and has cruised at the same altitude for 30 years, seeing victories largely as a result of minority urbanisation and black voter apathy.

The trick is that, if the DA cannot fix South Africa, or change it dramatically, the ANC’s voter base will be radicalised: “if the DA coming into power means little or no change, then the whites must have been in power the whole time – that’s why our lives are so difficult”. If anything, staying the same might feel worse, since people tend to remember recent pains more than past ones, and they will have plenty of time to feel poor under a DA government, and they will have the added humiliation of being governed (in part) by whites.

But there really is no other option open to the DA here (except secession, haha), even if it will lead to a massive swing back to the radicals in a few years.

In order to change the whole of South Africa, Helen Zille is right – it would take a national coalition with the ANC. According to what she said in her regular “triangle speech”, where Zille outlined the need for the DA to take advantage of the ANC falling below 50%, she had been seeking this coalition since 2014. And according to a bit of leaked audio from 2019, she would rather work with Ramaphosa’s ANC than with any of her smaller rivals.

Since then, of course, the rest of the ExCo came to see things her way, and I must admit, I have had to begrudgingly accept that it is indeed the “best worst” (that should be “least bad”) option, now that Cape independence has been defeated.

The independence movement may see a renaissance in three years’ time, when the coalition is likely to expire, but for now, the result has been fairly unambiguous – even taking into account the “zeroing” fraud that has become common in South African elections (counting the votes from marginal parties as votes for preferred candidates), the Referendum Party is done.

DA voters were a peculiar lot – they were hypersensitive to suggestions that the DA would form any deal with the ANC, largely denying it was even remotely possible, and then completely doing a 180 and declaring it to be the greatest victory since Majuba once the DA turned out to have been lying.

I suspect that even in the worst-case scenario, the DA will not lose a particularly large amount of support. At local elections, it may become harder for them to blame anyone for the problems their residents face, and so might get a bit of punishment, which will mean growth for the VF+ and ASA. But most will remain loyal.

But here I would offer a quote from a favourite writer of mine, who once pointed out that people actually enjoy being lied to by their politicians:

"The post-modern way to be a hypocrite, favoured by politicians, is to own it: they make it obvious that it’s all a performance, a lie – for some other demographic, that you knowledgeable people get to listen in on, knowing it's a lie. “He just has to say that to get elected.” And a series of logical contradictions are then permitted to exist simultaneously, each lie understood explicitly as a lie because it’s for those others who need such comforting lies. You would be forgiven if you thought the others who need these lies are idiots, because that sentence is literally correct yet opposite to how you used it: the idiot is you, because you need those lies to be told to idiots so that you can believe you’re not an idiot. In simple terms: the target of the propaganda is them; the target of the rhetoric (the lies that you end up believing, told to another demographic that is supposed to act on them) is you. “But it doesn’t make me believe them.” That’s not their purpose. Their purpose is to obliterate the necessity of truth to you – not to them. You’re probably baffled, so I’ll give you a simple example you’re not going to like. When former Presidential candidate Donald Trump told “his racist core demographic” of half the country the giant whopper that he was going to build The Great Terrific Wall of Mexico entirely out of pesos, did they believe him, or did you? Now ask yourself: exactly where did you hear that you should believe him?"

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