Carl Niehaus. Picture: Karen Sandison/African News Agency (ANA)
There are mixed feelings about ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that political parties should work as a government of national unity (GNU) when he addressed the nation on Thursday night.
Ramaphosa said after the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) deliberations they agreed they would invite political parties to form a GNU as the best option to move the country forward.
Ramaphosa said priorities included job creation, the reduction of crime and corruption and the provision of basic services.
“We have already held constructive discussions with a number of parties - the EFF, IFP, DA, National Freedom Party and Patriotic Alliance (PA),” said Ramaphosa.
Some South Africans, political parties and other organisations have suggested that the move by ANC and DA was due to a mandate from capital while others said the GNU was primarily meant to accommodate the DA, but was sugar-coated to seem to include everyone.
The ANC finds itself in the position because it failed to achieve 50% plus 1 in the polls. This failure was described as historic. The party clinched just 40.2% of the votes when the elections took place on May 29.
The DA was rejected by about 80% of the voting population, yet it was approached to form the GNU.
Red berets leader Julius Malema is also rejecting a GNU.
“The arrogance continues even after the South African voters issued warning signs. You can’t dictate the way forward as if you have won elections. We are not desperate for anything, ours is a generational mission,” Malema said.
The EFF’s incoming member of Parliament, Carl Niehaus, lambasted Ramaphosa.
“Now the ANC is a minority party - they are not in power - they cannot govern without other parties,” Niehaus said. “Ramaphosa must get off his arrogant high horse! He must stop obfuscating things in order to smuggle the DA by hook and by crook into government.
“We see him for what he is, a dishonest manipulative shyster!”
Niehaus said the reality was that Clause 88 of the Interim Constitution obliged the government of president Nelson Mandela to invite any party with 20 seats or more into the Cabinet.
Niehaus said a GNU was indeed a constitutional obligation of the 1994 Interim Constitution Act 200 of 1993. It was certainly not an act of benevolence.
“The GNU of 1994 was totally different from the ‘GNU’ that Ramaphosa is now proposing. History has no empty pages.
“Remember, president Mandela In 1994 had an overall majority of 62%. The ANC had an absolute majority. He did not need other parties to govern. I know, I was there. I was an ANC MP of the first democratic Parliament in 1994,” Niehaus said.
Some South Africans took to social media platform X, also accusing the proposed GNU as being sugar coated.
“Cyril Ramaphosa just told us that the ANC is going into coalition with the DA without telling us that the ANC is going into coalition with the DA,” wrote Niduu Siseko.
Another X user, Vuyo, wrote: “100% this is their indirect coalition. The winner here is the DA. That’s all they wanted and they got it.
“They’re using the EFF and other parties for this indirect coalition. The ANC doesn’t want to listen to their members, they’re now manipulating them. People are not stupid.”
The EFF’s Dali Mpufu wrote on X: “ANC did not lose a single vote to the right-wing & racist DA. The DA in fact took 4 seats directly from the FFPlus.
“The ANC bled 120 seats in 10 years mainly to parties to its radical left EFF & MKP Stupidity is breaking your left arm but putting plaster on the right arm.”
The Star
ntombi.nkosi@inl.co.za