Division among some of the parties forming the Government of National Unity (GNU) have been laid bare, with the ANC describing the DA’s expectations to be consulted about which parties join the coalition as a betrayal of the GNU principles.
This follows DA federal chairperson Helen Zille’s remarks that they had written to ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula about the Patriotic Alliance’s (PA) inclusion in the GNU, without discussion or agreement among the partners.
In an SABC interview, Zille said the ANC could not bring in whatever people it felt like bringing in.
“It is not the ANC that gets to invite everybody, as Fikile seems to think. He keeps on making public statements about this one joining and that one joining, but he must read clause 24 of what he signed,” she said. Zille said no party could join the GNU without the DA’s approval.
The clause states: “In keeping with the spirit of an inclusive GNU, it is agreed that the composition shall be discussed and agreed amongst the existing parties, whenever new parties desire to be part of the GNU.”
Zille said: “There are three founding members of this: it is ourselves (DA), the ANC and the IFP. ”
She said the DA was consulted about PAC, GOOD Party and UDM joining the GNU during negotiations, but this was not the case with the PA.
“The ANC must realise they don’t make all the decisions any more. They didn’t win the election,” said Zille.
Zille said the DA would have to be consulted before President Cyril Ramaphosa announced his Cabinet and that all parties must reach consensus.
“They must first of all be parties to the GNU, and then those parties have to represent 60% of the seats in the National Assembly ... Without the DA, the ANC can’t reach 60% of the seats in the National Assembly occupied by the GNU,” she explained.
Speaking on the sidelines of the inauguration of President Ramaphosa at the Union Buildings on Wednesday, ANC parliamentary chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli said there had been confusion about what the 60% threshold meant and represented.
He said the threshold was not a partnership between the DA and the ANC, but 60% of parties represented in the GNU.
“It does not mean the two of us can meet and make decisions at the exclusion of others. That is not how ANC orientation is about the GNU,” Ntuli said.
He said they saw each other as equal partners and there was no big brother. “This thing that the DA wanted to be consulted before others can be invited to join GNU is a strange way of thinking and it is a betrayal of what this GNU principles actually say,” said Ntuli.
DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube said her party anticipated the need for cool heads and mature conversations around the table. “That is why we needed a founding document with founding principles that will guide how this government will work. Now it is a matter of where we are, but there is no trouble at all,” Gwarube said.
“South Africans should be encouraged, in fact, that we have conversation early on instead of when the government is formed and already steaming on with delivery,” she said.
Gwarube also said there were a number of steps that allowed parties in the GNU to seek conflict resolution.
“This has not even escalated to that point. This is a point that really required clarification among the partners,” she said, adding that while the DA had no veto power, there needed to be sufficient consensus on who would be in the GNU.
The PA accused Zille of thinking that since her party signed the agreement it meant the ANC must do the DA’s bidding.
“She intends to ‘complain’ about not being ’consulted’ enough, despite the ANC having made it clear that they invited the PA and other parties into the GNU long before signing any document with the DA,” said PA secretary-general Chinelle Stevens.
Cape Times