ANC and DA divided on future of coalition
The country’s coalition crisis has been made more fraught by internal divisions in the ANC on whether to expel the Democratic Alliance (DA) from the government of national unity (GNU) for refusing to vote in support of the fiscal framework.
Similarly, there is tension within the DA about remaining in the broad coalition formed after the May 2024 general elections, with the party’s cabinet ministers averse to withdrawing from it.
The ANC is keenly aware of this — “[DA leader] John [Steenhuisen] does not want out” is a refrain from senior party sources. However, the ANC is reluctant to protect the DA interest in maintaining the 10-month-old coalition pact, and is concerned that it stands to gain nothing from continuing the arrangement.
ANC leaders bought themselves extra time to consider the way forward by convening a meeting of the national working committee on Monday where the debate about the future of the coalition continued for the better part of the day.
A senior official described the move as a way of allowing the smaller structure to build the case for keeping the coalition intact, after pleas from the business community in particular to consider the country’s stability, ahead of a meeting of the national executive committee.
Had the issue gone straight to the national executive committee, which had initially been set to meet on Sunday, there was no chance the coalition with the DA would survive, given the anger at its defiance on the budget.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has made plain his own ire at the party, including in a leaked recording of a call he made to the ANC’s caucus on the eve of the vote when he accused the DA of constantly positioning itself as an opposition force.
An increasingly public spat about who leaked the recording, in which Deputy President Paul Mashatile took a still more trenchant position, points to the tension within the ANC on the issue.
Speaking on Monday after delivering the keynote address at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation Legacy Business Breakfast in Johannesburg, Mashatile said the DA only had one choice if it wished to remain in the GNU — to support the budget.
“They must vote for the budget, they must come to support it. Remember we are not done, we were just voting for the fiscal framework. The Appropriation Bill is coming. There are a lot of bills that are lined up,” he said.
“Now that they have not voted for the fiscal framework, it sets the tone of what they will do with the Appropriation Bill, Division of Revenue Bill. Those things are still coming. We will work with those who go all the way with us. We need the budget to get South Africa working.”
An ANC insider told the Mail & Guardian that Mashatile was leaking information to journalists to undermine Ramaphosa and to promote his bid for the party presidency at its 2027 elective conference.
The source made reference to the leaked audio of the caucus, in which Mashatile said if the DA did not support the budget, it did not deserve to be in the GNU, and was essentially removing itself from the coalition.
“There is no one, comrades, who as a minister can continue to enjoy programmes of government on a budget that they oppose and vote against. It can’t be done — that’s the point I wanted to make,” Mashatile can be heard saying in the recording.
“I think the chief whip [Mdumiseni Ntuli] must make it clear to them so that, by the time they get to the house and they continue not to vote for the budget, they must have gotten this message.”
The source said Mashatile had no authority to instruct Ntuli to speak to the DA without Ramaphosa okaying the move.
“If you listen to that audio, you’ll be aware that the president was not aware that he was being recorded and he was trying to calm the situation after Paul spoke. The president can be the one deciding to remove the DA. The bigger plan of these guys is to get the Economic Freedom Fighters involved in the GNU,” the ANC insider said.
“It is so mysterious that he is never found in a compromising position in the audios and the recordings are always sent to the same people.”
They added that the ANC would be willing to consider working with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the coalition government but had made it clear that Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe party was not an option.
For those close to Ramaphosa, working with the EFF remains a line they will not cross.
However, in the same breath, they acknowledge that losing the DA’s 87 votes in the National Assembly, without partially making up for that by securing the 39 that the EFF holds, would leave the president deeply vulnerable to any potential challenge by an ANC rival during the remainder of his term.
An ANC official who declined to be named strongly disputed the suggestion that the leak had emanated from the Mashatile camp, adding that they knew who was responsible.
Several sources in the party noted that there was no harm in Ramaphosa being seen to take a hard line on the DA, when many in the party did not want him to indulge a problematic alliance partner or to yield to the business community.
At the weekend, the Sunday Times reported that ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula has been running a parallel budget negotiations team, allegedly sparking furious reactions from his top seven colleagues when they found out.
In a statement on Sunday, the party rejected the publication’s claims, saying the story was a fabrication with no basis in reality — “pure fiction posing as journalism, authored by wedge-drivers desperate to sow division in the ANC”.
A well-placed source downplayed the significance of friction over Mbabula’s efforts and pointed to lingering rivalry between the secretary-general and Ntuli, who contested for the same position at the ANC’s last elective conference, and was officially mandated to negotiate with the DA on the budget.
While the ANC deals with internal division over its role in the GNU, the DA has agreed to meet with the party to discuss its future in the coalition.
Sources in the DA told the M&G that the party finds itself at a crossroads as it debates whether to walk out of the GNU or stay and keep its position and influence as the second biggest party in the 10-party coalition.
“The fact of the matter is that not everyone wants to walk out of the GNU. We believe we can contribute better from within than from out,” a well-placed DA source said.
“The great division is now on who has the numbers. A great majority think staging a walkout would work, but the other group is against this, which is why we were all divided on the court case from last week as well.”
The source was referring to the urgent application filed by the party at the Western Cape high court last week against what it said were procedural and constitutional irregularities in approving a budget which the DA opposed mainly over a proposed VAT increase.