Kumbaya spirit has limits

One has to hand it to Cyril. He conducts, like a maestro, the impromptu and motley 10-part ensemble that stands between him and political oblivion and between SA and economic disaster.

Last weekend, President Ramaphosa summoned the leaders of the nine political parties that, along with the ANC, comprise the government of national unity (GNU) to a secret two-day meeting. It’s the first meeting between the GNU leaders in 177 days, according to Rapport.

“Strategic retreat”, is Ramaphosa’s new label for one of those touchy-feely talk-shops that his predecessors called a bosberaad or lekgotla. The name might have changed, but the kumbaya spirit of Rainbow Nation days remains undimmed.

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Ramaphosa said that “amid moments of serious talk” there were “moments of quiet and nice joy”, while Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi called it a time of “collaboration and reflection”. The PA’s Gayton McKenzie said the spirit of unity in the GNU is now of “holy” proportions.

An unidentified party leader, quoted by News24, waxed biblical, too. It had been “an opportunity to break bread and share wine together”. There were “no sticking points”; they “had a lovely dinner”, watched cricket on the big screen, and, as he put it, the “wine was flowing”.

In all the rapturous news reports on this love-fest, he then strikes the only sour note. Key to it being constructive was that everyone put South Africa’s interest first, and “the DA didn’t throw any wobbles at us” and John Steenhuisen fortunately had “refrained” from raising the DA’s “contentious positions”.

This anonymous comment inadvertently exposes the GNU’s greatest flaw: a dearth of robustly contesting ideas. South Africa is ill-served by a GNU in which the opposition voices are so chuffed simply to be invited to the table that they bite their tongues, instead of challenging their ANC host.

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Unless opposition members of the GNU force substantial policy shifts soon on expropriation without compensation, B-BBEE hurdles for foreign investors and race quotas for local employers, cadre deployment, the government’s anti-Western tilt in foreign and defence policy, SA is as surely “doomed” as it would be under the ANC’s feared “Doomsday coalition” with the EFF.

Much of the post-meeting communiqué was devoted to the GNU’s adoption of the Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP) as its “transformative vision” through to 2029. There’s little new here. The MTDP largely reheats the National Development Plan’s goals of 2012, served up at regular intervals since, most recently in the ANC’s 10-point economic plan.

The communiqué references the long-promised GNU “clearing-house” to settle disputes between the coalition partners. Even in this coalition, it won’t lack for work: cadre deployment and foreign policy alone will keep it busy.

The communiqué also calls for minimum standards for board appointments to state-owned entities. For the DA, which is litigating the issue, that should mean the end of ANC cadre deployment. For the ANC, it plainly does not.

Whatever the public communications on the unity between the leaders, there obviously remain many lurking obstacles. One of them is the National Dialogue.

The statement, signed by all the leaders, “reflected” on their commitment to a National Dialogue, “which brings together all South Africans to address the challenges”.

But the DA formally withdrew from the Dialogue in June, calling it a wasteful fig leaf for ANC double standards. When I queried Steenhuisen on whether there was not a contradiction here, his response was short and unambiguous.

“No… our position on the National Dialogue has been clear; nothing has changed since then.”

Kumbaya has its limits, it seems.

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