Who will blink first in game of chicken between DA and ANC? Steenhuisen or Ramaphosa?

Within 48 hours, President Cyril Ramaphosa needs to have fired Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane, Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane, Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation David Mahlobo, “and other ANC ministers and deputy ministers implicated in corruption”.

This was the message that DA leader John Steenhuisen delivered in Parliament on Thursday in a raging response to Ramaphosa’s firing of Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Andrew Whitfield, a DA member.

If not?

“Grave consequences,” said Steenhuisen.

“All bets are off and the consequences will be [the ANC’s] to bear.”

Steenhuisen did not get any more specific than that. The clear implication, however, is that the DA will leave the Government of National Unity (GNU) if what he calls for does not happen.

Trouble is, as Steenhuisen surely knows, it definitely won’t happen: Ramaphosa cannot possibly be seen to comply with this demand for sweeping firings from the DA without causing outright mutiny in his party. So what happens next?

Intriguing aspects 

This saga, the latest existential threat to rock the GNU just as it passed its first birthday, has several intriguing aspects.

The most pressing question is: Why did Ramaphosa fire Whitfield now? The “unauthorised” trip Whitfield took to the US for the DA, which is the justification for his firing by the President, took place at the end of February, Whitfield told 702’s John Perlman on Thursday afternoon.

Whitfield is further adamant that he requested permission from Ramaphosa to take the trip 10 days in advance, followed up every day, and ultimately heard nothing.

It was reported at the time that Whitfield’s trip had angered Dirco Minister Ronald Lamola, but why wait almost four months to take action against him, if his US visit did indeed constitute a grievous offence against the GNU?

If Ramaphosa suddenly obtained some information that rendered Whitfield’s position in his executive untenable — such as treasonous behaviour by Whitfield on the US trip — he would do well to share it with the public, or risk an orgy of conspiracy theorising.

As it is, there will be many who smell a rat and sniff around for other reasons, which may include, as Steenhuisen suggested, that Whitfield “had opposed an attempt to make suspect appointments; he was standing in the way of the looting that will follow from the Transformation Fund — and all of this in a department mired in corruption allegations involving the tender for the National Lottery”.

Whitfield himself, however, in a 702 appearance on Thursday evening, downplayed his involvement in questioning the tender for the National Lottery linked to Deputy President Paul Mashatile.

Unless there is far more to this story than meets the eye, Ramaphosa’s firing of Whitfield is a mystifying double standard — in a context where Higher Education Minister Nkabane has been mired in controversy for weeks over her handling of the appointment of Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) boards.

Prominent academic Professor Malegapuru Makgoba publicly called on Ramaphosa to axe Nkabane, terming her a “disgrace”.

For Nkabane to stay comfortably in the President’s Cabinet while Whitfield is fired from the executive would seem exceptionally hard to justify — and was guaranteed to cause an uproar from the DA.

This is the second question of the moment: why would Ramaphosa not give himself some political cover for the axing of Whitfield by embarking on a wider Cabinet reshuffle, as was initially reported by News24 on Thursday morning?

As Steenhuisen accurately pointed out, there are multiple candidates within Ramaphosa’s Cabinet who seem, at least based on the known facts, to be far worthier of ditching or moving than Whitfield. It raises the possibility that Ramaphosa specifically aimed either to cause a confrontation with Steenhuisen, to test how far he could push the DA, or to fire a warning shot across the GNU’s bows about who is boss.

The third question of the moment is why would Steenhuisen make such an extreme demand to Ramaphosa — fire at least three ministers and deputies within 48 hours or face the DA’s potential exit — rather than simply asking for either the reinstatement of Whitfield, or his replacement with another DA MP?

This, too, amounts to almost suicidal brinkmanship.

GNU ‘on the brink’ every other week 

We have, of course, been here before.

In September 2024, Steenhuisen told critics not to “catastrophise” conflicts within the GNU, but at every major moment of conflict, it has been senior leaders of either the DA or the ANC issuing dire warnings that things are on the brink.

Opposition to the Employment Equity Act, National Health Insurance, the Expropriation Act, the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act and the VAT-hike Budget had previously threatened to topple this precarious alliance.

When the DA refused to support the ANC’s Budget, it was Ramaphosa who did not pull the trigger on removing the DA from the GNU as other Top Six ANC figures threatened. But in the majority of other cases, it has been the DA that has capitulated.

Former DA strategist Ryan Coetzee, who was a member of the DA’s GNU negotiation team, wrote on X on Thursday: “[Ramaphosa] summarily firing Andrew Whitfield is a hard, hard, hard no. No party could ever accept it. But why does [Ramaphosa] think he can? Because when you [ie, the DA] have press conferences effectively saying you will never leave, the message is: do what you like to us.”

This moment, however, feels different. For Steenhuisen and the DA to meekly accept the firing of their deputy minister, ostensibly on spurious grounds, would seem untenable.

But the bigger complication here, which both the ANC and DA are aware of, is that the party which is seen to torpedo the GNU faces electoral punishment.

The latest Brenthust Foundation poll found that the majority of voters support the GNU and that both the ANC and the DA’s electoral prospects have improved through their membership of it.

Being seen to have blown up the GNU is a massively high-risk political manoeuvre, however justified it may be in principle.

In his address on Thursday, Steenhuisen attempted to hammer home the message that the consequences for whatever happens over the next few days need to be laid at Ramaphosa and the ANC’s door.

“Make no mistake about it: what happens next is entirely on the ANC and President Ramaphosa. They did not have to do this. They triggered all of the events that follow,” he said.

But if the GNU goes up in flames, will disappointed voters remember — or care — who threw in the final match? DM