The hybrid sitting of the National Council of Provinces, Cape Town, 12 September 2024. (Photo: Elmond Jiyane GCIS ) 
In a week where the Government of National Unity (GNU) seemed to be teetering on the edge of a cliff, President Cyril Ramaphosa had a message for South Africa: the GNU is not going anywhere.
Addressing the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Thursday, Ramaphosa told MPs: “Last night, I had dinner with various parties of the GNU. Each one of the parties at that dinner table all confirmed that the Government of National Unity is here to stay.”
Questions have been swirling this week around the sustainability of the co-governance arrangement after Ramaphosa announced that he would sign the Bela Bill into law on Friday: a piece of schools-related legislation to which both the DA and the FF Plus are vocally opposed, largely on the grounds that it is seen as threatening the existence of Afrikaans-medium schools.
Ramaphosa made it clear on Thursday that he was not going to blink first.
“From tomorrow onwards,” Ramaphosa said, in an apparent reference to the signing of the Bela Bill, “you’ll see how we find solutions to continue this Government of National Unity.”
Read more: Ramaphosa and the Bela Bill — the power of political surprise, but at what cost?
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/WhatsApp-Image-2024-09-12-at-14.36.08.jpeg "President Cyril Ramaphosa during the hybrid sitting of the National Council of Provinces, Cape Town, 12 September 2024. (Photo: Elmond Jiyane / GCIS )")
‘Processing team’ will assist in resolving GNU conflicts
The Bela Bill dispute has brought to the fore the need for the 10 parties within the GNU to establish a clear conflict resolution process. Ramaphosa said that progress was made in this respect at the dinner he hosted for GNU leaders at his Cape Town residence on Wednesday night.
“Last night when we met we decided that in ensuring we enhance a good working relationship, we will have what we call a ‘processing team’: a team that will process whatever needs to be addressed by the leaders of all the political parties. That processing team will identify those issues that we need to discuss, and resolve, from time to time,” said Ramaphosa.
“Will we take [disputes] to arbitration or mediation? No, we will engage amongst ourselves.”
The President reiterated that the GNU would settle disputes via the “tried and tested” technique of sufficient consensus. The GNU’s Statement of Intent stipulates that sufficient consensus is taken to exist when parties to the GNU representing 60% of the seats in the National Assembly agree.
The breakdown of seats within the GNU parties is as follows:
- ANC: 40.18%;
- DA: 21.8%;
- IFP: 3.85%;
- Patriotic Alliance: 2.05%;
- FF Plus: 1.36%;
- Good: 0.18%;
- Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania: 0.23%;
- FF Plus: 1.36%;
- UDM: 0.49%;
- Rise Mzansi: 0.42%; and
- Al Jama-ah: 0.24%.
The 60% consensus clause was considered a masterstroke by the DA negotiation team during the coalition talks because, as the figures above show, it is impossible for the ANC to achieve the threshold without the DA. Together, the ANC and the eight other GNU parties beyond the DA barely scrape 50% of National Assembly seats.
Read more: Consensus on the best interests of SA will define GNU success
Zille ‘whistling in the wind’
As rosy a picture as Ramaphosa painted of GNU dynamics in his NCOP appearance, there were occasional flashes of steel.
This was the case when EFF MP Mandisa Makesini questioned Ramaphosa about comments made by the DA federal chair, Helen Zille, at a public event in late July. As seen in a video clip which circulated widely on social media, Zille said that the current co-governance arrangement was not a Government of National Unity but a coalition between the DA and the ANC.
Ramaphosa responded that this was a “completely wrong characterisation”.
The President told the EFF MP: “How anyone, including the person that you referred to [Zille], seeks to describe it, is just a matter of polemics. It’s just somebody who is whistling out there in the wind, and trying to paint a particular colour to what we are seeking to do.”
Ramaphosa said that he was very satisfied with how the GNU was working.
“Everyone who has been appointed in various positions is showing a great deal of commitment, not to work for themselves, not to work for their own parties, but to work for the people of South Africa,” he said.
He confirmed that all the ministers and deputy ministers in the GNU executive would shortly be signing performance agreements with him.
Ramaphosa was also unyielding on the point of the National Health Insurance Bill, which has been another point of contention for the DA.
The President underscored the status of the Bill, which has already been passed by Parliament and signed into law.
“I’m open to how we talk about how this Act is going to be implemented,” Ramaphosa said, adding that he was calling for “continuous engagement”.
Another hot-button topic to emerge in the NCOP on Thursday was Justice Minister Thembi Simelane’s dubious 2016 “loan” from VBS Mutual Bank, exposed by journalists from Daily Maverick and News24. Ramaphosa assured MPs that he had taken prompt action on the matter.
“As soon as the story around [Simelane] arose, I asked for a report that will outline exactly what the situation is,” said Ramaphosa.
“She has just submitted the report to me with all the documents and the attachments, which I am now studying. And I have said publicly I would like time and space to look at this, to examine all this, to be able to see how we take this matter forward.” DM