US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, slashing development aid and funding to global multilateral organisations, combined with major global disrupting forces such as climate change and artificial intelligence (AI), are ushering in a new global era of uncertainty, triggering a probable global economic downturn and possibly causing economic ruin for many countries.
Global trade, economic and political governance rules, institutions and multilateralism have been upended. It is causing internal turmoil in countries outside the US, disrupting economies, companies and potentially causing instability in societies as their economies experience, or will experience, downturns.
Many developing countries’ economies will crash, especially those that are poorly governed.
Countries, firms and communities that practise good governance are more likely to thrive in global disruption. Good governance is an inoculation against geopolitical, economic, technological and environmental unpredictability. Good governance helps strengthen country, society and company resilience in the face of uncertainty.
South Africa’s Government of National Unity (GNU) offers an inclusive governance model to navigate the global disruption. The GNU brings together the diversity of SA’s political parties, colours and resources. Diversity offers a buffer to uncertainty. However, for the GNU to be effective, it must be truly inclusive, and must include non-ANC partners in decision-making, policy-making and ideas generation. South Africa’s growth, poverty reduction and employment creation can only come through its diversity.
Consensus decision-making
The success of South Africa’s new GNU will heavily depend on whether the ANC and participating opposition party leaders can muster the maturity to adhere to consensus decision-making, rather than majority decision-making or brinkmanship. The June 2024 agreement that established the GNU provided for consensus decision-making as the basis to arrive at decisions.
Up to now, the ANC, which has governed South Africa for the past 30 years, based its decisions on majority rule, which is democracy in its most limited form. In many cases the majority rule decisions of the ANC often favoured the party, its leadership, or ideological and populist interests, rather than the best interests of South Africa. The ANC has struggled to transition from its long-standing culture of unilateral majority-based decision-making to inclusive consensus decision-making, as outlined in the GNU agreement.
Consensus decisions — if genuinely taken in the widest public interest, produce better quality policies, wider societal embrace of decisions and policies, and therefore more successful implementation of them. Consensus seeking is more likely to produce outcomes that are in the widest interests of all of society, rather than dominant groups.
Consensus, rather than majority rule decisions, has been at the heart of countries that have established inclusive democracies, sustainable development and peaceful societies. Many of the great economic miracles in the post-World War 2 period, whether in Japan, Germany or Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, have been based on consensus decision-making in politics, economics and wider society.
South Africa’s post-2024 GNU government is a new multiparty government, not the continuation of the ANC majority government. Yet many ANC leaders, members and supporters misguidedly insist that it is an ANC government, with the GNU partners as add-ons. In this incorrect view, past ANC policies, for example foreign policy or the National Budget, automatically become GNU policies. Given that it is a new multiparty government, and not an ANC majority government, it must come up with new GNU policies, and not just continue with the policies and Budget the ANC adopted and implemented when it was a majority government.
GNU Plus — Partnering with business, civil society and professionals
South Africa’s domestic and international challenges cannot be navigated by politicians or government officials alone. It is critical that the GNU transforms into a GNU Plus that would include business, civil society and professionals to co-govern South Africa during the Great Disruption South Africa and the world now face.
It is crucial for the turnaround of the economy that the GNU partners with business, civil society and professionals to form a kind of GNU+, to help provide new ideas, capacity and energy to turn around the country’s broken state, broken economy and broken society.
Importantly, this partnership should be based on co-delivery, co-implementation and co-ideas generation. It has to be a real co-creation partnership, not the government only seeking the help of business, civil society and professionals in instances of full state collapse.
Partnership is particularly important in mission-critical state, policy and resource failures. Key elements of the ANC ideologically oppose working with business, civil society and professionals — unless they are ANC political capitalists, ANC-associated “civil society” or forums; or unless the ANC can “discipline” business and civil society, or unless the partnership is temporary to fix dire state failure.
For example, South Africa must establish a GNU Plus task team bringing together the GNU partners, critical government departments and business, civil society and professionals to negotiate South Africa’s impasse with the US, and to seek new markets for the country’s products.
A pragmatic, SA Inc approach
The GNU Plus governance model has to be based on a SA Inc approach, which looks at solutions based on whether they are in the widest interest of South Africa, not whether they are in the interest of one political party, ideology or colour.
The South Africa Inc approach that President Cyril Ramaphosa used, involving the non-ANC Government of National Unity partners, business and civil society organisation, and keeping ANC ministers in the background, helped to ensure that the Trump-Ramaphosa meeting did not plunge into a Volodymyr Zelensky-like shouting match.
It is critical that pragmatism is at the heart of policy-making, decision-making and public appointments. Pragmatism is basing decisions on being practical, in the present and in the current context, rather than based on ideology, or the past, or on “Great Truth” ideologies, whether Marxism or “black or white” thinking.
The East Asian economic miracles after the end of World War 2 were largely because of pragmatic policies, approaches and stances, rather than being based on “Great Truth” ideologies. These countries have adopted orthodox or unorthodox policies not based on dogma or ideology, but on practicality. Thus, these countries could combine state-guided policies with market-driven policies, pragmatically based on the context. For example, Japan partnered with the US, which had defeated it in World War 2; Vietnam partnered with the US even after the Vietnam War; communist China copied Japanese style policies. The Israelis worked with the Germans after World War 2. In contrast, failing African countries followed Marxism, African socialism or struggle allegiance policies.
China’s own post-60s economic miracle has been based on pragmatism, choosing policies that have worked across the world, taken from Japan or the US, rather than pursuing dogmatic communist policies.
ANC leaders and members have often pursued populist, ideologically rigid and past-based policies, rather than adopting pragmatic policies. Populist and left breakaway parties from the ANC also in most cases adopted populists, ideologically outdated and past-based policies. For example, many of the ANC’s foreign policies have prioritised past liberation-era allegiances of the ANC, rather than being based on present conditions. Such policies have often been against the national interests of South Africa, stunting economic growth, undermining development and industrialisation.
A GNU that prioritises pragmatism may foster a society-wide movement towards pragmatic approaches to economic development, political partnerships and community collaborations — which are necessary for higher levels of economic growth.
Reform GNU conflict resolution mechanisms
The Statement of Intent that provides for the GNU provides for a dispute deadlock breaking mechanism. It is called a clearing-house mechanism. It is an issue-specific negotiating committee, currently chaired by Deputy President Paul Mashatile to iron out disputes. However, the clearing house has yet to adopt terms of reference and is not an ideal conflict resolution mechanism.
During all the policy disputes between the ANC and non-ANC GNU partners, the clearing house had its last meeting in December 2024, when the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act was the centre of the deliberations. But the clearing-house subcommittee was ultimately unable to resolve the dispute.
The GNU’s conflict resolution mechanisms must be reformed. It cannot be chaired by a leader from the dominant party. It obviously cannot be chaired by the country’s president. It has to be chaired by one of the smallest parties, or by an independent outsider — an ombud, who has buy-in from all GNU partners.
Furthermore, the GNU or parties in any coalition must have a parallel political structure where key party leaders — not the national leaders of the party — can meet every two weeks to proactively look at issues that could potentially be conflictual.
Finally, South Africa is a constitutional democracy. This means that every policy dispute, including ones in the GNU that the agreed conflict resolution mechanisms are unable to resolve, can be taken to the courts to arbitrate.
South Africa’s GNU model, which brings together a diversity of parties (and therefore different ideologies, ideas, and minority groups), is a more inclusive governance approach for societies in crisis, but also for societies that face external threats. South Africa faces both domestic crises and now the Trump foreign crisis. As a country, we have no option but to try to make the GNU work. DM
William Gumede is Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg).
This is an extract of his recent speech on ‘How A GNU Plus Governance Model Can Help South Africa Navigate Global Disruption’, at the recent FluidRock Governance Group, 3rd Annual Governance Conference, Sandton.