Clash of wills: Will the DA stay or will it go?

At one point during a rambling 90-minute press conference, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula looked as if he may resort to song to make his point about whether South Africa’s coalition would stay intact, amid feverish speculation that the DA would walk.

“That song, Should I Stay or Should I Go Now – it’s a very nice song. The question is, if you stay, then what do you want,” he said.

There are, of course, a number of versions of that tune, but perhaps the most appropriate, as far as the ANC’s framing of this dispute goes, is the one released in 1981 by British punk band The Clash. 

After all, as the business sector warned the ANC last week, if the DA leaves the coalition, there will be trouble – not least for the markets. 

“We have a great deal to lose,” executives from South Africa’s largest companies, including Investec CEO Fani Titi, Discovery CEO Adrian Gore and Anglo American’s Duncan Wanblad, wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa in a letter.

“Stay the course. Stay in the room. Hold the line. Keep building. Compromise,” they said. If the coalition were to collapse, “it would halt the momentum that has been built, and the damage – to trust, investment, and delivery – would be significant and possibly irreversible in the short term”.

But to hear Mbalula tell it, many in the ANC believe that, were the DA to remain in a fractious marriage of convenience, the damage would be double. 

“Many of our members do not agree even with the participation of DA in the [government]. They don’t want it. Most of them say ‘dismiss them’,” he said.

Still, the ANC’s secretary-general added selflessly that his party is “loyal” to this coalition, so as much as many in his party might not like the DA being there, this is about prioritising South Africa’s interest.

The bottom line, he said, is that the ANC would seek to “engage” with the DA over the next five days, and would not turf it out. If the DA were to leave, it would be its own choice, he said. 

But with conflicting messages abounding, you can see why indecision is bugging everyone.

While Mbalula said the ANC would speak to the DA to bridge the impasse over the budget – the core point of contention, as the DA refused to vote in favour of a budget that would hike VAT from 15% to 16% over the next two years – he muddled the issue by saying the DA would have to “explain themselves” if it wants to remain in the unity government.

“You can’t stay without explaining yourself, how you’re dealing with this [budget],” he said.

Freestyling to an adjacent metaphor, Mbalula said this is what happens in any troubled romantic relationship, where you can say to a partner: “I had second thoughts about you, but it’s fine, I decided to stay.”

Of course, it’s not just Mbalula sending out mixed messages. This week, Deputy President Paul Mashatile said he would be “ashamed” if he were one of the DA ministers arriving at work on Monday morning, after having voted against the budget the previous week. 

“You want to work as a minister [but you have] not voted for the budget,” he told a breakfast in Illovo, effectively heaping pressure on the ANC’s coalition partner to resign. 

The predominant line from the ANC is that by not voting for the budget, the DA has “defined itself out of the coalition”. Which is an odd line to take since, as Mbalula said, none of the parties in the government, including the ANC, wanted a tax hike. 

Tease tease tease

It sets the stage for a curious game of chicken: the ANC, it seems, would desperately love the DA to leave the coalition, but without having to push it out; the DA, for its part, is seething that the ANC hasn’t realised that it lost power, but is wrestling with how to calibrate its own identity as an opposition party within the government. 

John Steenhuisen, the DA leader and agriculture minister in Ramaphosa’s cabinet, responded to Mbalula yesterday by saying his party too remains “fully committed” to the government of national unity.

But, Steenhuisen said, the ANC must “demonstrate that it is equally committed to the spirit and substance of sharing power”, given that it is in this coalition not because it wants to be, but because its share of the vote fell to 40.2% in last May’s election.

Steenhuisen flatly rejected Ramaphosa’s view that the DA has “defined itself outside the government”, saying his party “has been clear and consistent about our position on VAT”. If any party sought to “define itself outside the government”, he said, it was the ANC, which lobbied parties outside the coalition – most notably Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA – to support it. 

Like a testy arranged marriage, kept together for the sake of the family, Steenhuisen and Mbalula both whinged plenty at each other through third parties, but seemed resigned last night to enter “talks” to discuss the future of the government. Perhaps therapy would be a better word.

So when will South Africa know the outcome? According to Mbalula, May 6 is the final date for a “resolution” on the budget, which implies it must all be settled, one way or another, by then.

At this point, neither the DA nor the ANC seems willing to blink, with both calculating the other party needs it more – it’s tease, tease tease, with both of them believing the other is on its knees.

_{Top image: ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula. Picture: Gallo Images/Frennie Shivambu.}