Illustrative image: Sources | John Steenhuisen. (Photo: Deaan Vivier / Gallo Images / Netwerk24) | President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Andy Wong / EPA-EFE) | Patient in hospital. (Photo: iStock) | The NHI Act. (Photo: Rosetta Msimango / Spotlight) 
The decision by the DA to declare a “dispute” in the national coalition government over the Expropriation Act reveals how the ANC has been able to put the party under pressure at key junctures.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of the Expropriation Act into law was a deliberate political act. However, while the ANC may well have the upper hand in negotiations in the coalition, it should not be forgotten that governing with Jacob Zuma’s MK party would be a disaster for the ANC — which means it needs the DA.
The Act was passed by Parliament in March last year, but Ramaphosa only signed it into law last week.
While the Act is complex and concerns constitutional issues around the legality of when someone can be deprived of their property, it beggars belief that a group of lawyers in the Presidency took so long to decide whether it could be signed.
This suggests that the timing of Ramaphosa’s signing was deliberate.
Considering that Ramaphosa signed the Act on the Thursday before the start of the Cabinet lekgotla involving ministers from all the parties in the national coalition, it may be that he wanted to weaken the DA.
As the largest bloc of non-ANC ministers in Cabinet and because of the size of its constituency, the DA might well pose the biggest non-ANC threat to Ramaphosa in Cabinet.
However, it may be that the real target was National Health Insurance (NHI).
Existential threat
Ramaphosa knows that this issue poses an existential threat to the DA with its constituency. The DA has to be seen to protect private healthcare and its payment systems through medical aids.
Now, while it cannot afford to lose sight of NHI, it also has to contest issues around expropriation.
This follows a trend in which Ramaphosa has signed into law Acts that were passed by the previous Parliament. This in itself is contentious, because it means Acts passed by a Parliament that was voted for in 2019 are now being passed into law, even though the current Parliament might not have supported them.
To put it another way, this Act stems from the 2019 election, not the 2024 election.
Despite the facts and the text of the Expropriation Act, the ANC and the DA are going to use this issue to fire up their supporters.
As the head of Land Reform at Werksmans Attorneys, Bulelwa Mabasa, told The Money Show last week, if land is occupied and productive, the chances of it being expropriated with “nil” compensation are zero.
This act by Ramaphosa changes very little on the ground; the government has always had the power to expropriate, any decision by the government in this process can be challenged in court and if “nil” compensation is paid it will only be in very special cases probably involving land that has been abandoned.
Unfortunately, both the ANC and the DA have reasons to claim the opposite and to ignore the facts.
The ANC may want to remind its voters it is trying to solve SA’s land ownership problems, while the DA wants to tell its voters it’s fighting to protect their property.
Ramaphosa may have had other reasons for signing the Act when he did.
As BusinessLIVE’s Natasha Marrian has suggested, Ramaphosa is under pressure in the ANC and the Tripartite Alliance more generally for working with the DA.
Signing the Expropriation Act into law could allow him to regain some internal support and be claimed as proof that the ANC is still fighting to regain land that was taken during the colonial era and apartheid.
Game of brinkmanship
This is likely to be one of the features of the coalition for as long as it lasts, an almost deliberate game of brinkmanship with threats on all sides. Considering how different the constituencies are that are represented in the coalition, this is not surprising.
However, what is happening here is the careful application of pressure by Ramaphosa on the DA.
First, before the election, was the signing into law of the NHI Act, then after the election, the Bela Act and now the Expropriation Act.
The DA strongly opposes all of these and has publicly claimed it can never support them.
While Ramaphosa may want to ascertain what the DA’s breaking point is, it is more likely that he knows he can keep it under pressure and thus extract more from it.
This forces the DA to pick its fights — it may not be able to oppose both the NHI and expropriation at the same meeting.
The DA has to find ways to respond to this pressure and to try to turn the situation to its advantage. This might have informed its decision over the weekend to publicly declare a formal dispute — it could be part of a strategy to ensure the DA cannot be blamed if the coalition fails.
DA leader John Steenhuisen has to make the point that he can walk away from the coalition.
This might well be a reminder to Ramaphosa that the ANC does not have many options either.
If the DA were to leave the government, the ANC would need to be in coalition with another relatively big party (unless it tried to govern as a minority administration, going from parliamentary vote to parliamentary vote). The only viable option in terms of the numbers would be MK.
Politically impossible
This might seem feasible, but would be politically impossible for another two years. This is because MK is in continual chaos and it would demand that Ramaphosa resign.
As the ANC is nowhere near ready to elect a new leader or appoint someone else president, it cannot agree to this (never mind the more fundamental point that no party in any democracy can allow another party to override its choice of leader).
Working with MK could be fatal for the ANC. It would signal to voters that the ANC had returned to being the ANC of State Capture, with the result that it would lose even more votes in future elections.
This then gives the DA a leverage point to work with.
At the same time, while the ANC and the DA strongly disagree about NHI, the fact that it faces several legal challenges means it will not move forward substantively for some time.
Instead, the ANC and the DA will continue to argue about it for probably the next two years in an attempt to show their constituencies they are working for them.
The game of pressure and brinkmanship will continue, with both sides using all the leverage they have. DM