JUJU AT THE SEAT OF POWER?
If the ANC loses its majority, the leader of the EFF could become No 2 in the country
great test will confront the ANC around May next year. The party will have fought a hard election and most likely been forced to below 50% of the vote, marking the end of 30 years of unalloyed control. If the ANC’s losses are small, it will easily put together a coalition with one or several small parties and form a national government, and perhaps even some provincial ones.
If its losses are substantial, however, it will have to make a choice: stand on principle and sit in the opposition benches if there are no acceptable coalition formulations, or decide on power at all costs and go with a partner whose practices and policies are at odds with what it is basically choose between the opposition benches and the EFF.
This brought to mind a popular saying, often misattributed to the 16th president of the US, Abraham Lincoln: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
Or, in the case of the ANC, threaten to take power away. Given its history of being in charge these past 29 years, I fear that the ANC will choose power over principle. That would make the policy landscape beyond 2024 extremely complex and challenging.
Political commentator Prince Mashele recently asserted that Julius Malema would become deputy president of the country next year. With the ANC facing a result hovering at about the 40% mark in the elections, the party would need a coalition partner. Mashele pointed out that Malema has kept up friendly ties with Deputy President Paul Mashatile and provincial ANC leaders. Even while he excoriates President Cyril Ramaphosa,
AMalema genuflects before Mashatile. When the time comes, argues Mashele, the likes of ANC leaders in Gauteng (which has already lost the three key metros in the province) will pile on the pressure for obeisance to Malema and his party. Mashele suggests the ANC will give Malema the deputy presidency and a few cabinet posts in return for support to form a government.
Will it happen in quite this way?
The first thing to consider is that the ANC is already in coalition with the EFF in many of the contested metros in Gauteng. The mayor of Joburg, for example, is an empty suit the ANC and the EFF are running the city. In Ekurhuleni it’s the same. In KwaZulu-Natal, the IFP is packing up from municipalities where it was in charge and leaving an ANC beholden to Malema.
The second point to bear in mind is that ANC provincial leaders such as Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi and others have been going to extraordinary lengths to accommodate the EFF. That is because the ANC has been on a losing wicket in the province for nearly a decade now, and it faces Armageddon next year. It is likely to use all the power and leverage it may have to push for an alliance with the EFF.
However, in the ANC key leaders such as mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe, communications minister Mondli Gungubele and finance minister Enoch Godongwana are reportedly “very uncomfortable” with the provincial toenadering towards the EFF. The question is what their choice would be if they faced the prospect of vacating their ministerial mansions next year. Principle, or power?
A huge absence in this debate is Ramaphosa. Ask the DA about who it is prepared to jump into bed with in the various coalitions that are emerging and collapsing at local level now, and you will get an earful from DA leader John Steenhuisen or the party’s federal council chair, Helen Zille. Ask the EFF the same thing, and a barrage will come at you from Malema. Ramaphosa’s views are hardly expressed. He does not feature in the debate.
The key issue, of course, is that Malema would not just demand the keys to David Mabuza’s old office and then wander off to sample the whisky. He would want policy concessions. Would Mashatile, if he elbowed Ramaphosa out, concede on land and other policy positions the EFF considers non-negotiable? Mashatile has in the past pooh-poohed the idea of expropriation of land without compensation, for example. But the prospect of losing power would, I believe, change his mind.