- 31 January 2025
- News & Politics
- 9 min to read
- article 2 of 17
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Piet CroucampContributing editor
IN MANY respects, president Cyril Ramaphosa is the father of the idea of a government of national unity (GNU). This is a status he should cherish. He will certainly not be remembered as a great political leader, and if his legacy as someone who established effective systems is important to him, he would do well to look at the GNU in that regard.
For most of his comrades and party members, the idea of a cooperative government is still something to get used to, since for 30 years, the ANC and its cabinet ministers have exercised unchecked power. However, since the formation of the GNU, there has been an assumption that policy should be the result of a consensus – or at least a sufficient consensus – between historical opponents and possibly even between competing ideologies.
Who has Ramaphosa's ear?
I sometimes wonder who advises Ramaphosa. Is there someone who warns him when the political signs of a “perfect storm” appear on the horizon of the GNU? Is there someone who whispers in his ear that small but important adjustments in his wording could be a crucial step forward for difficult agreements? Is there a therapist on hand who can empower him in time with the emotional intelligence to avoid weaponising the phrase “national democratic revolution” against his allies in the opposition benches of the cabinet?
Does anyone warn him that the words “whether they like it or not” not only alienate his political allies in the GNU but also exclude many South Africans from his political agenda? That the phrase, which he uses mockingly and with an authoritarian undertone, damages the fabric of political compromises in a liberal-democratic system? Does anyone tell him that it would send an important and necessary message to his own comrades if he made an effort to listen to ministers from opposition parties rather than ignoring them on a populist note or stigmatising their policy proposals?
Does he have a sufficient academic understanding of concepts like the ideological content of the “national democratic revolution” to realise that it unnecessarily and unsustainably drives a wedge of distrust between him and both international and national capital owners?
I see The Wall Street Journal writes: “South Africa has the biggest need for external capital and the lowest potential for attracting it of any emerging market.”
Does anyone ever tell the president that without trust in him as a leader and in the political system his government represents, it is likely there will never be enough economic growth to provide millions of unemployed South Africans with a place in the labour market? Does anyone remind him that ideological dogma leads to poverty – just as much in America as in South Africa? Does anyone tell him that his best friends in China, Cuba, and Russia do not grant their own people the political rights for which so many South Africans had to pay with their blood?
A law to mess up
Let’s turn back home. Over the past year, the president has signed three highly significant laws – two with great fanfare to make an ideological statement, and one while he was attending the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland.
The National Health Insurance (NHI) Act was signed on May 15, 2024 and, according to health minister Aaron Motsoaledi, is supposed to establish a national health insurance system for all South Africans. I cannot think of a single major project that the ANC government has effectively implemented and managed. They are going to mess this one up too.
The Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act, signed on 13 September 2024, amends existing education laws on amongst other language policies and the jurisdiction of school governing bodies. The law may be problematic in terms of the powers it grants to provincial officials over admissions and language policy. However, Solidarity’s involvement in the debate has tainted and undermined the already slim chances of a negotiated settlement between the ANC and the DA.
The Expropriation Act was signed on January 23, 2025, replacing the 1975 Expropriation Act. Among other things, these amendments establish procedures for the expropriation of property by state entities in the “public interest” and at zero compensation.
The Bela Act is certainly controversial, and the healthcare law is life-threatening for most South Africans. However, it is strange that, out of the three laws, the Expropriation Act has caused the most instability within the GNU. As Ali van Wyk argued last week in Vrye Weekblad, the Expropriation Act, which has become the centre of a major public dispute between the DA and the ANC, is probably one of the better and more functional laws that the ANC has pushed through the national legislature.
‘No’ not the same as ‘zero’
Dean Macpherson of the DA is the minister responsible for implementing the law. The DA has now declared a dispute with the ANC under clause 19 of the GNU’s statement of intent, following the ANC’s handling of the Expropriation Act. Macpherson and Helen Zille argue that the ANC makes decisions as if the GNU is merely an inconvenient presence rather than a political ally within the coalition. However, this issue should be separated from the questions the DA is raising about the Expropriation Act itself.
According to his version of the dispute, Macpherson obtained a legal opinion and wrote to the president, arguing that the law should be referred back to the legislature because his legal analysis found unconstitutional aspects in the law. Many liberal South Africans instinctively sided with the DA minister in his dispute with the president. I don’t know, maybe he’s right. But his offhand remark, as reported in the media, that “no expropriation without compensation will take place under his ministerial administration” is misleading, because the Expropriation Act makes no mention of such a principle. We will continue to misunderstand each other if we use contradictory concepts interchangeably.
Incidentally, on the KykNET programme In Gesprek met Lourensa the DA’s spokesperson, Willie Aucamp, on more than one occasion gave the impression that he did not know the difference between “zero” and “no” compensation. In fact, Aucamp disagreed with Rise Mzansi’s Makashule Gana and aligned himself with Hermann Pretorius, the Institute of Race Relations's (IRR’s) head of strategic communications, who also clearly understood the legal amendment as “expropriation without compensation” rather than “expropriation at zero compensation”.
Resorting to the NDR
That said, the ANC’s insistence on filtering legislation through the lens of the national democratic revolution (NDR) provides Pretorius and Aucamp with the political oxygen that turns opportunistic ignorance into the driving force of a superconductor. When the ANC leadership comes under internal pressure, the NDR is predictably revived; not to convince the masses of the party’s constructive intentions, but rather to settle factional battles by turning policy debates into ideological disputes.
One of Ramaphosa’s first real challenges as ANC president is the upcoming national general council (NGC) scheduled for 2025. This mid-term review conference serves as a platform for the party to evaluate the implementation of policies adopted at its previous national conference in December 2022. The NGC will also assess the performance of the national executive committee (NEC).
This will be the moment when Luthuli House and the president will face pointed questions regarding the extent to which the resolutions of the 55th national conference in December 2022 have been implemented. The ANC’s leadership – particularly secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and party chairperson Gwede Mantashe – will be in a highly critical spotlight, and it is expected that political rivals like Ramaphosa and Paul Mashatile will make significant moves on the political chessboard at this event.
Political manoeuvring ahead of the NGC
Ramaphosa’s recent references to the NDR, along with his theatrical signing of the Healthcare Act, the Bela Act, and now the Expropriation Act, have a lot to do with the upcoming NGC meeting. In the run-up to this event, it is crucial for competing elites to create the impression that the ANC – rather than the GNU – is in control of key policy decisions.
But the real issue may not just be policy differences within the GNU, but also competing ideologies. The NDR is not a concept directly found in the Freedom Charter. During the 1969 Morogoro Conference, the “Strategy and Tactics" document became the first formal ANC policy framework to explicitly outline the NDR. It conceptualised the liberation struggle as a revolution aimed at overthrowing apartheid and establishing a democratic system that would eradicate both racial and economic oppression.
The document emphasised the need to address both national oppression (racism and apartheid) and class oppression (economic inequality), rhetoric that aligned with the Marxist-Leninist assumptions of the time. Ultimately, the SACP played a decisive role in introducing and popularising the NDR within the ANC, viewing it as a necessary phase in the broader transition to socialism. Whether this argument is relevant to South Africa’s current economic growth challenges is up for debate, but something tells me it’s a waste of time.
Head-on ideological differences
The close alliance between the ANC and SACP, strengthened during the exile years, ensured that Marxist-Leninist ideas had an impact on the ANC’s strategic thinking. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the NDR had become an integral part of the ANC’s political rhetoric and official documents. It shaped the ANC’s understanding of liberation as both a political and socio-economic transformation.
Naturally, the use of the NDR concept creates a sharp dividing line within the GNU. But I can’t think of anything that would alienate the DA enough to make them leave the GNU entirely. And if that were to happen, it certainly wouldn’t be the Expropriation Act that drives them to that breaking point. The DA has already made it clear that they will only leave the GNU if the constitution is “destroyed”—which is essentially code for “we’ll only leave if we get kicked out”.
However, the lead-up to and discussions within the ANC during the NGC meeting will test both the DA’s resolve and South Africans’ nerves.
♦ VWB ♦
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